tihvavy  of  Che  trheolojical  ^emmar;p 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

The  Estate  of 
Rev.  Robert  0.  Kirkwood 


BX  5937  .B83  L3  1910 
Brooks,  Phillips,  1835-1893 
The  law  of  growth  and  other 
sermons 


Phillips  Brooks's  Sermons 

In  Ten  Volumes 

1st  Series 

The  Purpose  and  Use  of  Comfort 

And  Other  Sermons 

2d  Series 

The  Candle  of  the  Lord 

And  Other  Sermons 

3d  Serie» 

Sermons  Preached  in  English 
Churches 

And  Other  Sermons 

4lh  Series 

Visions  and  Tasks      And  Other  Sermons 

5th  Series 

The  Light  of  the  World 

And  Other  Sermons 

6th  Series 

The  Battle  of  Life     And  Other  Sermons 

7th  Series 

Sermons  for  the  Principal  Festi- 
vals and  Fasts  of  the  Church  Year 

Edited  by  the  Rev.  John  Cotton  Brooks 

8th  Series 

New  Starts  in  Life     And  Other  Sermons 

9th  Series 

The  Law  of  Growth 

And  Other  Sermons                      j 

10th  Series 

Seeking  Life      And  Other  Sermons 

E.   P.   Dutton   and   Company 

31  West  23d  Street                                                  New  York 

The  Law  of  Growth 


And  Other  Sermons 


By  the 
Rt.  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks,  D.D. 


Ninth  Series 


NEW  YORK 

EP- BUTTON  ^  COMPANY 
31  West  T>venty-Third  Street 

1910 


Copyright,  1902 

BV 

E.  P.  DUTTON  AND  COMPANY 
Published  March,  190a 


TCbe  Itniciterbocltec  pteee.  View  S!otR 


CONTENTS. 


Sermon  Pagb 

I.    The  Law  of  Growth i 

"  For  whosoever  hath,  to  him  shall  be  given ;  and 
whosoever  hath  not,  from  him  shall  be  taken  even 
that  which  he  seemeth  to  have."— Luke  viii.  i8. 
(March  ii,  1877.) 

II.    Half-Life 20 

"  Truth  shall  spring  out  of  the  earth,  and  righteous- 
ness shall  look  down  from  heaven." — Psalm  Ixxxv.  11. 
(Sept.  27,  1885.) 

III.  The  Power  of  an  Uncertain  Future        .       39 

"  Watch,  therefore,  for  ye  know  neither  the  day  nor 
the  hour  wherein  the  Son  of  man  cometh." — Matthew 
XXV.  13.     (Nov.  22,  1874.) 

IV.  The  Spiritual  Struggle    ....       61 

"For  we  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but 
against  principalities,  against  powers,  against  the  rulers 
of  the  darkness  of  this  world,  against  spiritual  wicked- 
ness in  high  places." — Ephesians  vi.  12.  (Sept.  14, 
1878.) 

V.    The  Battlements  of  the  Lord  .        .       80 

"  Take  away  her  battlements,  for  they  are  not  the 
Lord's." — Jeremiah  v.  10.     (Feb.  20,  1881.) 

VI.    Christ  Our  Life 99 

"  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  rise  up 
and  walk." — Acts  iii.  6.     (May  i,  1887). 


IV  CONTENTS. 

Sermon  Page 

VII.     My  Brother's  Keeper     .        .        .        .115 
"Am  I  my  brothe/s  keeper?" — Genesis  iv.  9. 
(Nov.  15,  1885.) 

VIII.     Rest 133 

"Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy- 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." — Matthew  xi.  28. 
(Oct.  12,  1890.) 

IX.     The  Material  and  the  Spiritual.         „     150 

"And  as  he  went  out  of  the  temple,  one  of  his 
disciples  saith  unto  him  :  Master,  see  what  manner 
of  stones  and  what  buildings  are  here  J  " — Mark 
xiii.  I.     (June  lO,  1877.) 

X.     The  Double  Cause 167 

"  And  his  name  through  faith  in  his  name  hath 
made  this  man  strong,  whom  ye  see  and  know." 
— Acts  iii.  16.     (May  4,  1889.) 

XI.     Go  Into  the  City 184 

"Arise,  and  go  into  the  city,  and  it  shall  be  told 
thee  what  thou  must  do." — Acts  ix.  6.  (Dec.  27, 
1874.) 

XII.     The  Holiness  of  Duty    ....     199 

"Wherefore  the  law  is  holy.'" — ROMANS  vii.  12, 
(Nov.  12,  1876.) 

XIII.  Peace  which  Passeth  Understanding  .     219 

"  The  peace  of  God,  which  passeth  all  under- 
standing."— Philippians  iv.  7.     (April  23,  1876.) 

XIV.  The  Relative  and  the  Absolute  .         .     236 

"  And  there  was  also  a  strife  among  them,  which 
of  them  should  be  accounted  the  greatest." — LUKE 
xxii.  24.     Qan.  10,  1886.) 


CONTENTS. 


Sekmom 

XV. 


Pagb 


The  Strength  of  Consecration 

"And  Samson  said,  Let  me  die  with  the  Philis- 
tines. And  he  bowed  himself  with  all  his  might  ; 
and  the  house  fell  upon  the  lords,  and  upon  all 
the  people  that  were  therein.  So  the  dead  which 
he  slew  at  his  death  were  more  than  they  which 
he  slew  in  his  life." — Judges  xvi.  30.  (May  14, 
1876.) 


XVI.     The  Danger  of  Success 

"  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  They  have  their  re- 
ward."— Matthew  vi.  2.     (April  12,  1874.) 

XVII.     The  Spiritual  Man      .... 

' '  But  he  that  is  spiritual  judgeth  all  things,  yet 
he  himself  is  judged  of  no  man." — 1  Corinthians 
ii.  15.     (No  date.) 

XVIII.     Delight  in  the  Law  of  God 

"I  delight  in  the  law  of  God." — ROMANS  vii. 
23.     (May  3,  1874-) 

XIX.     The  Ark  of  the  Covenant  . 

"And  the  ark  of  the  covenant  of  the  Lord 
went  before  them." — Numbers  x.  33.  (Dec.  ig, 
1875.) 

XX.     Sons  of  God 

"  Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it 
doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be." — i  John 
iii.  2.     (Oct.  10,  1875.) 


XXI.     The  Feast  of  Tabernacles  .         .        .     365 

"  And  I  that  am  the  Lord  thy  God  from  the 
land  of  Egypt  will  yet  make  thee  to  dwell  in 
tabernacles,  as  in  the  days  of  the  solemn  feast." 
— HOSEA  xii.  9.     (Jan.  i,  1888.) 


273 


294 


3" 


328 


346 


THE  LAW  OF  GROWTH. 


I. 

LAW   OF   GROWTH. 

"For  whosoever  hath,  to  him  shall  be  given;  and  virhosoever 
hath  not,  from  him  shall  be  taken  even  that  which  he  seemeth  to 
have." — Luke  viii.  i8. 

It  is  interesting  to  know,  of  any  one  whose  char- 
acter and  ways  of  thought  we  are  studying,  what 
words  are  oftenest  upon  his  tongue.  And  it  would 
seem  as  if  this  proverb,  which  I  have  just  quoted 
from  Him,  were  a  favorite  utterance  of  Jesus. 
Three  of  the  Evangeh'sts  record  it,  and  the  circum- 
stances with  which  they  connect  it  are  different. 
St.  Matthew  mentions  two  occasions  on  which 
Christ  used  the  words. 

It  would  seem,  then,  as  if  the  truth  which  these 
words  record  seemed  to  Christ  very  impressive  and 
important.  He  found  in  it  the  occasion  for  the 
most  earnest  exhortation  to  faithfulness.  Such  a 
fact  must  deserve  our  best  study  and  come  very 
close  to  our  life.     Let  us  try  to  see  what  it  is. 

"  To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  from 
him  that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  even  that  which 


2  LAW   OF   GROWTH 

he  seemeth  to  have,"  In  one  case  when  Jesus  used 
the  proverb  the  parable  of  the  talents  had  come  just 
before.  The  immortal  picture  was  just  fresh  in  the 
Disciples'  minds, —  the  careful,  prudent,  faithful 
merchant,  whose  five  talents  had  attracted  five 
others,  and  turned  themselves  to  ten;  the  poor, 
timid,  helpless  creature  who  brought  his  one  talent, 
all  caked  and  useless  with  the  earth  in  which  it  had 
been  lying.  And  while  the  people  were  listening 
with  that  suspicion  of  injustice,  that  uneasy  sense 
of  something  wrong,  which  almost  always  comes 
when  prosperity  and  misery,  success  and  unsuccess, 
stand  side  by  side,  Jesus  went  on  frankly  to  declare 
that  the  truth  of  the  parable  was  a  truth  every- 
where ;  that  everywhere  there  was  a  law  of  growth,^ 
a  law  of  accumulation  and  of  loss,  which  drew  more 
blessing  where  blessing  was  already,  and  condemned 
to  decay  that  which  had  no  real  vitality.  It  was  a 
sort  of  "  survival  of  the  fittest  "  declared  to  be  ex- 
isting throughout  the  world. 

And,  just  as  soon  as  such  a  truth  is  announced, 
there  are  a  multitude  of  voices  which  proclaim  how 
true  it  is.  Many  of  them  speak  in  bitterness  and 
anger.  Indeed,  it  is  the  taunt  of  every  disappointed 
soul.  "Look,"  he  who  has  failed  says,  "look  and 
see  how  everywhere  the  prosperous  prosper  and  the 
unhappy  attract  unhappiness  by  a  terrible  affinity. 
Behold  how,  when  a  man  is  rich,  riches  fly  to  his 
overloaded  coffers  of  their  own  accord,  while  the 
poor  man  by  his  side  grows  poorer  every  day.  Yes, 
it  is  true  enough ;  let  a  man  be  going  up  and  all  the 
world  hurries  to  help  him ;    let  him   begin  to  go 


LAW   OF   GROWTH  3 

down,  and  where  is  the  friend  that  will  not  push 
him  lower  ?  "  So  men  speak  with  all  the  exaggera- 
tion of  bitterness.  Now,  we  want  to  leave  out  all 
the  bitterness,  for  that  is  an  element  that  never 
helps  men  to  the  truth.  We  shall  see  by  and  by 
whether  the  truth  is  one  that  ought  to  make  us 
bitter.  We  want  to  stand  now  calmly  and  look 
over  all  the  broad  world,  and  see  how  true  it  is, — 
this  centralization  of  blessing,  this  tendency  of  all 
privilege  to  attract  other  privilege. 

It  appears  in  the  distributions  of  business.  He 
who  is  fullest  of  work,  he  to  whom  the  multitude 
are  resorting  to  buy  their  goods,  or  to  secure  the 
building  of  their  houses,  is  the  man  whom  each  new 
customer  seeks  out,  while  his  neighbor  sits  with  his 
tools  around  him,  waiting  for  work  which  flows  in  a 
full  stream  past  his  doors,  and  lets  no  drop  free  to 
trickle  in.  It  is  true  in  learning.  The  more  a  man 
knows,  the  more  the  sources  of  learning  open  to  him 
on  every  side.  All  the  mouths  of  the  world  seem 
to  be  opened  to  tell  him  everything  they  know. 
The  same  is  true  of  wealth.  When  a  man  reaches 
a  certain  point  of  wealth,  his  money  reduplicates 
itself  almost  without  his  efforts,  even  drawing  into 
itself  the  hard-earned  profits  of  the  toil  of  poorer 
men.  And  it  is  true  of  public  favor.  The  man 
whom  all  are  praising  is  the  man  whom  all  men  praise. 
Popularity  draws  the  eyes  and  voices  of  the  crowd, 
and  gathers  with  most  unneeded  profusion  about 
some  one  or  two  people  in  the  town.  And  of  that 
far  more  sacred  thing.  Friendship,  see  how  true  it  is. 
To  him  who  has  friends,  friends  are  given.     They 


4  LAW   OF   GROWTH 

come  crowding  up  to  claim  some  little  fragment  of 
the  kindness  of  the  much-loved  man,  leaving  the 
other  man,  who  has  a  whole  heart  to  give  away, 
with  no  one  to  ask  him  for  it. 

Or  think  of  usefulness.  One  man  cannot  walk 
anywhere  but  at  his  feet  there  start  innumerable 
opportunities  to  help  his  fellow-men.  Need  flies  to 
him,  and  if  he  had  a  hundred  hands,  and  each  day 
were  a  hundred  hours  long,  he  could  not  satisfy  the 
opportunities  for  doing  good  which  crowd  themselves 
tumultuously  upon  him.  And  then,  right  in  the 
resounding  echoes  of  his  busy  work,  you  will  find 
that  other  sight — always  so  sad ! — of  one  who  wants 
to  help  his  brethren,  and  round  whose  life  there 
shuts  a  wall  of  uselessness,  within  which  he  can  only 
sit  and  feed  upon  himself. 

Or  think  of  health.  The  well  man  breathes  it  in 
from  every  breeze.  The  sick  man  feels  every  touch 
of  the  life-giving  nature  stealing  what  little  life  he 
has  away.  And  so  of  healthiness  of  soul, —  that 
cordial,  fresh,  and  kindly  interest  in  things  which 
makes  the  joy  of  living.  All  the  complications  of 
life,  all  the  touchings  of  life  on  life,  are  always 
pouring  more  of  this  red  wine  into  the  cup  that  is 
already  full,  while  they  make  more  morbid  the  soul 
that  is  filled  with  suspicion  and  discontent  already. 
And  so  of  enthusiasms  and  devotions.  Your  mind 
is  full  of  an  idea,  your  soul  is  given  to  a  cause,  and 
inspiration  and  encouragement  flow  in  to  you  from 
every  side.  You  find  assurances  that  you  are  right 
and  will  succeed  everywhere.  Nature  and  man 
both  become  the  prophets  of  your  strong  belief. 


LAW   OF   GROWTH  5 

But  to  your  friend  who,  working  with  you,  has  no 
such  faith  as  yours,  all  nature  and  all  men  have  only 
voices  of  discouragement.  All  that  comes  to  him 
frightens  him. 

We  might  go  on  and  catalogue  everything  that 
there  is  good  and  fine  in  human  life.  We  make  our 
theories  of  compensation  and  of  equal  distribution. 
We  go  on  expecting  that  somehow,  some  time,  ev- 
erything will  be  adjusted  and  equality  proclaimed: 
the  conditions  are  to  be  reversed ;  the  outs  are  to 
come  in  and  the  ins  are  to  go  out.  We  try  to  make 
it  appear  that  everything  is  mechanically  adjusted 
by  what  we  call  "  impartial  justice  "  every  Saturday 
night,  or  at  that  great  Saturday  night  of  all  which 
we  call  death.  And  all  the  time,  underneath  all 
our  theories  and  expectations,  breaking  up  through 
them  constantly  with  its  contradictions,  there  runs 
this  vast  law  with  its  countless  illustrations, —  the 
law  that  the  happy  always  tend  to  become  happier, 
and  the  good  better,  and  the  wise  wiser,  and  the 
rich  richer,  and  the  bad  wickeder,  and  the  fools 
more  foolish,  and  the  poor  poorer.  All  the  while 
to  him  that  hath  it  is  being  given,  and  from  him 
that  hath  not  is  being  taken  away  that  which  he 
seemeth  to  have. 

And  now  what  shall  we  say  about  this  law  ?  In 
the  first  place,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  the 
operation  of  the  law  there  is  wrought  out  the  greater 
part  of  the  picturesqueness  and  interest  of  human 
life.  That  which  some  amiable  theorists  delineate, 
and  try  to  establish  as  the  actual  condition  of  things, 
would  certainly  make  a  very  tame  and  monotonous 


6  LAW   OF   GROWTH 

world.  The  strong,  emphatic  characters  and  careers 
which,  having  much,  are  always  drawing  to  them- 
selves more  and  more  of  the  things  which  make  life 
rich, —  these  certainly  give  to  humanity  a  various 
strength  and  beauty  which  none  of  us,  not  even  the 
humblest  and  the  least  endowed,  would  really  be 
content  to  lose.  Do  you  suppose  that  the  obscure 
man  who  finds  that  everything  like  fame  or  notice 
drifts  away  from  his  life  and  gathers  about  the  lives 
of  one  or  two  preeminent  men  of  his  time  would 
really  wish,  in  all  his  discontent,  that  all  the  world 
of  reputation  could  be  rolled  level  and  no  man  be 
thought  more  of  than  any  other  man  in  the  great, 
flat  expanse  of  average  existence  ?  I  think  not. 
There  are — and  it  is  one  of  the  signs  of  goodness 
that  there  are — new  emotions  and  sources  of  pleas- 
ure which  come  out  and  exercise  themselves  when  a 
man  finds  that  his  is  not  to  be  one  of  the  privileged 
points  of  human  life.  The  pleasure  and  growth 
which  come  by  admiration  of  what  is  greater  than 
himself;  the  unselfish  joy  in  helping  to  complete  the 
good  work  of  some  one  who  is  supremely  qualified 
to  do  it;  the  growing  conviction  that  the  world  is 
richer  for  these  concentrations  of  power  which  at 
first  only  excited  jealousy, — all  of  these,  which  are 
among  the  truest  and  most  cultivating  pleasures 
which  a  man  can  have,  become  available  to  him 
who  accepts  and  rejoices  in  the  law  which  makes 
some  lives  supremely  rich,  even  though  his  be  not 
one  of  the  rich  but  of  the  poor.  The  valley  may 
wish  it  were  the  mountain  up  to  which  it  gazes 
from  its  humble  depth,  but  it  would  rather  be  the 


LAW   OF   GROWTH  7 

valley  with  the  glorious  mountain  towering  above 
it,  and  drinking  in  its  sustenance  from  the  moun- 
tain's side,  than  to  have  the  whole  earth  rolled 
smooth,  mountain  and  valley  obliterated  together 
in  one  indistinguishable  level  of  dreary,  barren  plain. 

Believe  me,  my  friends,  there  is  something  better 
for  you  to  do  than  to  accept  the  patent  inequalities 
of  life  with  forlorn  resignation.  There  was  never 
any  champion  of  individuality  like  Jesus,  and  yet 
He  recognized  and  found  no  fault  with  the  law  of 
privilege,  the  law  by  which  wealth  and  culture  and 
the  patent  forms  of  happiness  flow  together  and 
collect  in  the  rich  lives  of  certain  men.  It  is  pos- 
sible for  you,  though  a  poor  man,  to  take  so  wide  a 
view  of  the  world,  and  of  your  race,  that  you  shall 
be  thoroughly  glad  that  some  other  men  are  rich. 
In  conscious  ignorance  and  inability  to  learn,  you 
may  delight  to  know  that  some  man  whom  you  see 
is  very  learned,  and  learns  more  and  more  every  day. 
Nay,  you  may  be  very  wretched,  and  yet  have  your 
wretchedness  not  deepened,  but  lightened,  by  the 
sight  of  some  brother's  life,  into  which  happiness 
seems  to  have  poured  its  most  profuse  abundance, 
and  who  goes  singing  under  the  windows  of  your 
sorrow. 

You  have  anticipated  me,  I  know,  in  thinking 
that  the  perplexity  and  difficulty  come  when  we 
apply  our  law  to  moral  life,  and  find  that  goodness 
and  badness  also  have  the  same  principle  of  ac- 
cumulation. Then  it  is  often  very  bewildering. 
There  is  a  man  who  has  the  love  of  goodness  in 
him.     Something  of  the  divine  passion  of  holiness 


8  LAW   OF   GROWTH 

has  touched  him.  He  is  very  far  indeed  from  per- 
fect, but  he  is  a  good  man  as  distinct  from  a  bad 
man.  The  direction  of  his  life  is  set  toward  right- 
eousness. To  him  come  trooping  all  good  influences 
from  all  regions  of  the  earth.  Everything  he  reads 
and  sees  and  does,  everything  that  other  people  do 
to  him  or  around  him,  seems  to  give  him  some  new 
opportunity  of  good.  The  very  temptations  that 
beset  him  seem  compelled  to  render  up  to  him  their 
strength,  and  help  him  to  grow  better.  The  world 
of  things  seems  to  have  taken  his  goodness  into  its 
charge,  to  bring  it  to  completeness. 

Close  by  his  side,  it  may  be,  is  another  man,  whom 
all  the  world  calls  bad.  He  does  a  good  thing  here 
and  there,  but  the  choice  of  his  life  is  wickedness. 
The  deeper  dispositions  which  run  under  all  the 
casual  events  are  deliberately  set  toward  sin.  What 
is  it  that  makes  that  man's  life  terrible  to  watch  ? 
What  is  it  that  makes  gradually  gather  in  his 
own  eyes  a  hopelessness  that  sometimes  enrages 
him,  and  sometimes  only  serves  him  for  an  excuse  ? 
Is  it  not  the  way  in  which  everything  that  happens 
to  him  seems  to  increase  his  wickedness.  The  evil 
element  in  everything  seems  to  fly  to  him.  Out  of 
the  quietest  scenes  there  rise  up  voices  calling  him 
to  sin.  If  there  is  a  bad  man,  he  meets  him.  If 
there  is  a  combination  of  circumstances  which  can 
bewilder  faith  and  shake  responsibility,  it  seems  to 
gather  around  him.  This  is  the  way  in  which  life 
easily  comes  to  look  to  us  like  a  great  machine  for 
making  good  people  better  and  making  bad  people 
worse.     It  matters  not  that  round  the  good   man 


LAW   OF   GROWTH  9 

there  do  gather  manifold  temptations  to  be  wicked 
and  round  the  wicked  man  come  crowding  the  per 
suasions  to  be  good, —  nay,  the  very  subtlety  with 
which  goodness  draws  out  of  the  worst  temptation 
some  ministry  of  grace,  the  dreadful  ingenuity  with 
which  sin  draws  out  of  the  best  influences  some 
provocation  of  evil,  only  makes  the  truth  more 
manifest  of  how  easy  it  is  for  the  good  to  grow  bet- 
ter and  for  the  wicked  to  grow  worse  in  this  great, 
mysterious,  fertile  world. 

You  wonder  sometimes  how  men  can  believe  in 
heaven  and  hell.  My  friends,  the  wonder  is  how, 
with  this  sight  before  them  which  I  have  described, 
men  can  help  it.  The  belief  in  heaven  and  hell  is 
but  the  carrying  out  into  the  long  vista  of  eternity 
of  what  men  see  about  them  every  day, —  the  law 
of  spiritual  accumulation  and  acceleration,  the  law 
by  which  sin  and  goodness  increase  each  after  its 
kind.  The  more  clearly  a  man  believes  in  the  life 
to  come,  and  thinks  of  it  as  under  the  same  great 
moral  forces  that  pervade  this  life,  the  more  im- 
pressive grow  to  him  its  spiritual  necessities.  He 
believes  in  a  mercy  which  runs  beyond  the  grave; 
but  unless  it  be  a  mercy  which  does  what  mercy 
never  does  now,  and  compels  to  goodness  the  soul 
refusing  to  be  good,  there  still  stretches  out  the 
possibility  of  a  wickedness  forever  obstinate,  and  so 
forever  wretched. 

But  think  of  it,  if  you  will,  only  as  it  concerns 
this  present  life.  It  would  be  impressive  enough 
even  if  there  were  no  life  to  come,  this  tendency  of 
everything  to  make  the  good  grow  better  and  the 


lO  LAW   OF   GROWTH 

evil  worse.  If  the  fact  is  as  clear  as  I  have  stated 
it,  then  it  must  stand  as  one  of  those  things,  like 
the  wind  or  the  sunshine,  of  which  it  is  quite  un- 
necessary that  we  should  spend  our  time  in  asking 
whether  it  ought  to  be,  as  we  can  see  very  plainly 
that  it  is.  What  we  do  need  to  ask  is  the  value  of 
such  a  truth,  so  fundamental,  so  pervasive,  set  right 
into  the  midst  of  our  life.  How  will  it  affect  our 
living  ?  What  good  effects  is  it  intended  to  pro- 
duce ?  The  answer  to  that  question  seems  to  me 
to  be  twofold.  It  will  emphasize  individuality;  and 
it  will  keep  ever  vivid  the  difference  between  right 
and  wrong.  Let  us  look  at  these,  and  see  if  they 
are  not  what  the  world  very  much  needs. 

The  emphasis  of  individuality,  the  conviction  of 
a  man's  self  as  having  a  personal  character  and  living 
a  personal  life,  is  not  this  the  thing  the  lack  of  which 
has  made  the  weakest  moments  of  all  our  lives  ? 
There  are  two  classes  of  sins, — those  that  come  from 
our  feeble  yielding  and  those  that  come  of  our 
wanton  obstinacy.  Of  the  latter  class  we  may  say 
sometimes  that  they  result  from  our  exaggerated 
individuality.  Really  they  come  of  our  distorted 
and  diseased  individuality.  But  the  other  class 
comes  surely  from  the  absence  of  any  strong  sense 
of  individual  life  at  all.  From  the  boy  who  catches 
his  first  oath  from  the  lips  of  the  boy  three  years 
older  than  himself,  whose  impressive  age  and  ex- 
perience swallow  up  the  personal  responsibility  of 
the  admiring  youngster  by  his  side,  on  to  the  old 
man  who  dies  rich,  with  a  fortune  that  he  has 
made   by  some   of  the   conventional   unrighteous- 


LAW   OF  GROWTH  II 

nesses  —  where  is  the  trouble  in  it  all  ?  Is  it  not  in 
the  feebleness  of  the  boy's  and  the  man's  conception 
of  himself?  Duty,  duty,  that  great,  personal  idea, 
something  that  he  owes  to  God,  something  that  he 
must  do,  whatever  anybody  or  everybody  beside 
him  in  the  world  may  do, —  that  has  not  taken  hold 
of  him.  He  knows  nothing  about  it.  If  he  gets 
deep  enough  to  have  any  philosophy  about  it  all, 
his  whole  philosophy  will  be  this, —  that  goodness 
and  wickedness,  like  happiness  or  unhappiness, 
come  by  chance,  that  neither  is  to  be  struggled 
after  or  avoided. 

Oh,  it  is  terrible  to  think  how  full  our  streets  and 
houses  are  of  that  philosophy !  The  man  you  do 
your  business  with,  the  friend  you  take  your  pleas- 
ure with,  the  brother  or  sister  with  whom  you  live 
in  the  same  house,  it  is  terrible  to  think  how  all 
moral  life  seems  to  him  an  accident,  that  it  is  as 
perfectly  uncertain  whether  he  will  be  noble  or  base 
to-morrow  as  whether  the  wind  will  blow  east  or 
blow  west.  There  can  be  no  strong  sense  of  per- 
sonality there.  There  personal  life  resolves  itself 
into  a  bundle  of  tastes,  and  the  man  recognizes 
himself  only  by  what  he  likes  or  hates.  But  now 
suppose  that  man  can  come  into  our  law.  Growing 
cognizant  of  moral  life,  trying  to  be  a  good  man  or 
coming  to  know  himself  a  bad  man,  he  finds  all  the 
world  declaring  a  disposition  towards  him,  helping 
him  on  in  the  way  which  he  has  chosen.  He  has 
called  it  a  world  of  accidents,  and  thought  himself 
its  puppet.  But  the  minute  he  makes  any  moral 
declaration  of  himself  he  finds  the  world  all  devoting 


12  LAW   OF   GROWTH 

itself  to  the  fulfilment  of  that  declaration,  all 
tending  to  make  him  more  and  more  what  he  has 
set  out  to  be.  He  has  been  floating  on  the  waves, 
tossed  where  they  pleased  to  toss  him,  but  the 
minute  that  he  says,  "  I  will  go  thither,"  and  be- 
gins to  swim,  the  water  under  him  becomes  his 
helper;  it  lifts  him  up  and  floats  him;  it  answers  to 
the  beating  of  his  hands;  it  bears  him  on  and  lands 
him  where  he  wants  to  be.  Now  that  is  thoroughly 
personal.  It  cannot  be  anything  else.  A  man 
setting  a  moral  destiny  before  himself,  and  feeling 
the  whole  current  and  power  of  things  immediately 
bearing  him  on  to  it,  must  come  to  the  certainty 
that  he  is  a  self-determined  being  and  that  God 
helps  his  self-determination. 

Oh,  my  dear  friend,  this  is  what  you  want.  In 
your  parlor,  at  your  club,  you  are  losing  yourself, 
you  are  losing  your  soul,  you  are  getting  to  seem  to 
yourself  the  mere  creature  of  accidents.  What  do 
you  need  ?  Go  and  undertake  some  duty.  Go  and 
be  moral.  Go  and  be  good.  Go  and  find  the  soul 
that  you  have  lost.  Go,  and  in  the  midst  of  your 
self-indulgent  life  surprise  yourself  by  doing  what 
perhaps  you  have  not  done  for  years, — by  doing 
something  that  you  ought  to  do  because  you  ought  to 
do  it.  As  you  enter  that  moral  region  you  have  no 
idea  of  the  revolution  that  will  come  in  all  these 
accidents  and  their  relation  to  your  life.  It  will 
be  as  if  a  general  had  forgotten  his  generalship,  and 
gone  to  playing  games  and  running  races  with  his 
soldiers,  who  have  forgotten  it,  too.  But  by  and 
by  the  bugle  sounds,  and  he  recalls  himself.     He 


LAW   OF  GROWTH  I3 

flings  his  play  aside,  and  arms  him  for  the  battle. 
And  then  they,  too,  reverence  him  again,  and  cry, 
"Oh,  let  us  help  you,  for  we  are  only  your  servants 
as  soon  as  you  have  really  undertaken  to  be  worthy 
of  yourself."  So  all  the  world  will  help  you  as  soon 
as  you  try  to  do  your  duty.  When  you  claim  your 
manhood  it  will  own  your  manhood,  and  you,  who 
have  counted  yourself  a  mere  playfellow  of  the 
blind  chances  of  the  world,  will  find  yourself  recog- 
nized by  the  world  as  a  true  moral  creature,  to 
whom  it  is  commissioned,  by  the  God  who  made  it, 
to  render  its  humble  help  in  working  out  your 
moral  life. 

I  said,  again,  that  the  truth  which  Jesus  empha- 
sizes so,  and  on  which  we  have  been  dwelling,  is  of 
value  because  it  keeps  ever  vivid  the  difference  be- 
tween right  and  wrong.  The  idea  that  out  of  the 
mass  of  influences  about  us  the  good  character  ap- 
propriates the  elements  which  belong  to  it,  so  that 
it  grows  ever  better,  and  the  bad  character  appro- 
priates its  own  elements  and  grows  ever  worse  — 
that  seems  to  me  to  be  one  of  the  most  profoundly 
impressive  declarations  of  what  essentially  different 
things  the  good  and  evil  are.  I  take  two  seeds 
which  look  so  much  alike  that  only  the  skilled  eye 
can  tell  the  difference  between  them.  I  plant  them 
side  by  side  in  the  same  soil.  Immediately  each  of 
them  sends  out  its  summons.  Each  demands  of  the 
ground  the  elements  of  growth  which  its  peculiar 
nature  craves.  The  earth  hears  and  acknowledges 
the  summons,  and  renders  up  to  each  what  it  de- 
mands.    So  two  men,  who  seem  just  alike,  are  set 


14  LAW   OF  GROWTH 

down  in  the  same  city.  Instantly  to  one  there  fly 
all  the  influences  of  good  ;  to  the  other  there  gather 
all  the  powers  of  evil  that  pervade  that  city's  life. 
Or,  into  a  man's  life  is  dropped  a  purpose.  That 
purpose  instantly  declares  its  character  by  the  way 
in  which  it  divides  the  forces  of  his  life.  If  it  is 
good,  it  calls  all  that  is  good  within  him  or  around 
him  to  its  aid.  All  that  is  noble  gives  its  strength 
willingly  to  this  new,  feeble  plan.  All  that  is  slug- 
gish, base,  selfish,  in  his  nature  or  his  circumstances 
sets  itself  against  his  new  desire. 

It  is  in  such  discriminations  that  the  essential 
differences  of  the  qualities  of  the  good  and  bad  dis- 
play themselves.  In  the  least  atom  of  good  there 
lies  a  power  to  attract  goodness  and  repel  wicked- 
ness. In  the  least  atom  of  wickedness  there  lies  a 
power  to  repel  the  good  and  to  attract  the  bad. 
That  is  the  qualitative  power  of  moral  natures. 
Ah,  when  we  think  how  everywhere  we  are  imposed 
upon  by  quantities,  do  we  not  need,  do  we  not  wel- 
come, this  strong  statement,  that  the  real  power  of 
things  lies  in  their  qualities — in  what  they  really 
are,  whether  there  be  much  of  them  or  little  ?  See 
how  we  are  deluded.  We  take  some  vice  which,  in 
its  larger  manifestations,  we  know  is  flagrant  and 
destructive.  We  make  it  small.  Without  chan- 
ging its  character  in  the  least,  we  bring  down  its 
dimensions.  We  turn  the  great  public  cheat  into 
the  little  personal  deception;  we  transform  the 
large,  insulting  slander  into  base,  personal,  gossiping 
detraction;  and  what  was  acknowledgedly  bad  on 
the  large  scale  is  accepted  as  graceful  and  venial  in 


LAW    OF   GROWTH  1 5 

its  smallness.  Or,  just  the  opposite:  we  take  some 
action  which  in  its  petty  forms  everybody  owns  to 
be  bad  and  mean,  like  the  bullying  of  the  weaker 
by  the  stronger,  and,  lifting  it  to  a  higher  degree,  we 
crown  it  with  dignity  and  honor,  as  when  we  glorify 
the  oppressor  and  the  tyrant.  Oh,  we  do  need 
everywhere  more  of  that  conscientiousness  which 
looks  at  the  qualities,  less  of  that  superficialness 
which  is  overcome  by  the  mere  quantities  of  things. 

The  other  side  of  this  is  to  me  even  more  impres- 
sive. If  we  lose  sight  of  the  essential  nature  of  evil 
very  often  by  dwelling  upon  the  increase  or  diminu- 
tion of  its  size,  so  that  the  very  great  or  the  very 
little  evil  seems  to  us  to  be  almost  absolutely  good, 
the  same  is  true  about  the  quality  of  goodness. 
There,  too,  we  are  imposed  upon  by  quantity  till 
we  forget  that  quality  alone  is  vital.  If  we  could 
all  see,  and  always  see,  the  essential  force  which  is 
in  every  good  act,  however  slight  it  is,  and  in  every 
true  belief,  however  meagre  it  is,  how  different  our 
lives  would  be!  But  our  goodness  and  our  faith 
grow  very  small ;  and,  instead  of  valuing  all  the  more 
intensely  what  is  left,  our  ordinary  impulse  is  to 
throw  the  remnant  away.  It  is  so  little,  we  think, 
that  it  is  not  worth  the  keeping. 

Suppose  that  out  of  the  world  there  should  be 
slowly  or  suddenly  destroyed  all  the  seed  of  corn 
except  one  handful,  just  so  much  as  one  man  could 
hold  in  his  palm.  Can  you  picture  to  yourself  the 
care  with  which  that  handful  would  be  guarded  ? 
Can  you  imagine  the  interest  that  would  gather 
about  it,  the  poetry  and  dearness  that  would  be  in 


1 6  LAW   OF   GROWTH 

it;  how  men,  looking  at  it  and  knowing  it  to  be  the 
real  thing, — true,  real  corn, — would  see  in  it  the  as- 
surance of  days  yet  to  come  when  all  the  fields 
should  wave  once  more  with  harvests  ?  That  is  the 
way  in  which  you  ought  to  treasure  your  faith  if 
there  is  not  much  of  it,  if  little  by  little  it  has 
slipped  away  from  you.  You  say  it  has  grown  to 
be  very  little.  You  say  that  many  things  which 
you  used  to  believe  seem  to  you  no  longer  to  be 
true.  You  stand  holding  in  your  hand  the  remnant 
of  a  faith.  What  then  ?  Is  it  real  ?  Is  it  true 
faith  ?  Whether  it  be  little  or  great,  do  you  really 
believe  it  ?  If  you  do,  then  surely  that  belief  ought 
to  be  very  precious  to  you.  A  little,  a  very  little, 
belief  it  may  be, —  nevertheless  treasure  it  because 
it  is  belief,  instead  of  despising  it  because  it  is 
little.  Value  it  for  its  quality,  instead  of  dis- 
honoring it  for  its  quantity.  As  you  look  into  it 
behold  its  possibilities.  See  in  its  meagreness  the 
promise  and  power  of  a  great  and  manifold  belief 
that  may  yet  some  day  cover  your  whole  life  with 
verdure.  Put  it  where  it  will  be  safe;  and  the  only 
place  where  a  faith  ever  can  be  safe  is  in  the  shrine 
of  an  action.  Put  it  there.  Do  what  that  belief 
would  tempt  you  and  command  you  to  do;  and 
trust  to  its  true  quality  to  grow  under  the  care  of 
God,  who  knows  in  heaven  every  particle  of  true 
faith  that  there  is  scattered  about  the  earth.  In 
His  sight  it  is  all  too  precious  to  forget. 

What  a  great  many  people  need  to-day  is  to  for- 
get for  a  while  their  care  about  the  quantity  of  their 
belief,  and  to  give  their  anxious  attention  to  its 


LAW   OF   GROWTH  1 7 

quality.  Not,  how  muck  do  I  believe  ?  but,  how  do 
I  believe  ?  It  is  well  worth  while  for  you  to  learn 
to  ask  that  deeper  question.  Seek  reality,  even 
though  it  be  by  casting  aside  much  that  you  have 
carried  about  with  you  that  was  unreal.  It  is  a 
glad  day  for  a  true  man  when  at  last  he  plucks  off 
and  casts  away  a  faith  which  he  has  not  believed,  or 
a  hypocritical  habit  which  has  not  been  truly  his. 
"  Coming  down  to  reality,"  he  calls  it.  It  really  is 
coming  up  to  reality.  The  fresh,  strong,  hopeful 
future  opens  before  him. 

Of  every  other  experience  that  is  true  which  I 
have  been  stating  thus  about  belief.  You  need  to 
learn,  when  you  hear  Christ  your  Master  insisting 
on  repentance,  on  love  for  Himself,  on  love  for 
fellow-man,  on  devoted  work,  that  His  desire  is, 
first  of  all  and  deepest  of  all,  for  the  qualities  of 
those  things.  He  wants  a  real  repentance,  a  real 
love,  a  real  devotion.  If  He  sees  reality,  we  can 
well  understand  how  He  can  be  infinitely  patient 
with  littleness  ;  for  where  He  stands  eternity  is  all 
in  sight.  He  sees  forever.  He  knows  through 
what  summer  of  cloudless  sunshine  the  least  grace 
will  have  time  to  ripen  to  the  richest.  He  knows 
in  what  rich  fields  the  seed  will  find  eternal  lodg- 
ment. So  there  is  time  enough,  if  only  the  seed  is 
real.  If  it  is  not  real,  eternity  is  not  long  enough 
and  heaven  is  not  rich  enough  to  bring  it  to  any- 
thing. 

How  impressive  this  is  in  the  story  of  Christ's 
earthly  life!  How  patient  He  was  with  imperfec- 
tion!    How  intolerant  He  always  was  of  unreality ! 


1 8  LAW   OF   GROWTH 

He  could  wait  for  a  publican  while  he  unsnarled 
himself  out  of  the  meshes  of  his  low  vocation,  but 
He  cut  with  a  word  like  a  sword  through  the  solemn 
trifling  of  the  Pharisees.  He  never  was  impatient 
with  His  disciples.  Their  graces  were  very  small, 
but  they  were  real.  Eternity  was  long,  and  He 
could  wait  till  the  graces  which  He  saw  to  be  real 
opened  into  all  the  possibility  which  He  discerned 
in  them;  till  the  Peter  who  paraded  his  genuine 
but  feeble  resolution  of  devotion  at  the  Supper 
grew  to  the  Peter  who  could  die  for  Him  at  Rome, 
and  live  with  Him  in  some  high  doing  of  His  will 
in  heaven. 

It  is  good  for  us  if  we  can  treat  ourselves  as  our 
Lord  treats  us.  Try  to  find  out  whether  your  re- 
pentance for  sin  is  real — a  genuine  sorrow  for  a 
wrong  life.  If  it  is,  no  matter  if  it  falls  far  short  of 
the  complete  contrition  which  you  picture  to  your- 
self, still  keep  it,  hold  it  fast.  Do  not  let  it  slip 
away  and  drop  back  into  the  placid  content  which 
you  felt  before  you  were  penitent  at  all.  So  with 
your  love  to  your  Saviour, —  do  not  throw  it  away 
because  it  is  not  that  large-winged  devotion  which 
soars  up  into  the  very  sunshine  of  His  closest  com- 
pany. Keep  it.  Feed  it  on  all  you  know  of  Him. 
Never  trifle  with  it,  or  surround  it  with  any  un- 
reality of  profession  merely  to  make  it  seem  larger 
than  it  is.  Reverence  it,  not  because  it  is  great 
enough  to  be  worthy  of  Him,  but  because  for  such 
a  being  as  you  are  to  love  at  all  such  a  being  as 
He  is,  is  a  sublime  act, — the  glorification  of  your 
nature,  and  the  promise  of  infinite  growth. 


LAW   OF   GROWTH  I9 

I  long  for  every  Christian,  especially  for  every 
young  Christian,  to  see  this  first  Christian  truth  of 
the  value  of  the  essential  qualities  of  things  set 
deep  into  his  life.  Christ  was  full  of  it.  Christ 
showed  us  how  full  God  is  of  it.  In  it  is  the  secret 
of  endless  patience.  In  it  is  the  power  of  enthusi- 
asm at  every  stage  of  growth.  Can  the  soul  just 
come  to  Christ,  just  trembling  with  its  first  love, 
its  first  hope,  lift  up  itself  and  sing  enthusiastically  ? 
Yes,  if  it  can  know  indeed  that  "  to  him  which  hath 
shall  be  given,"  that  it  is  in  the  very  essential  nature 
of  the  life  it  has  begun  to  go  on,  and  never  stop, 
until  it  stands  in  the  glory  which  is  before  the 
Throne  of  God. 

In  the  truth  which  Jesus  taught,  then,  in  the  prov- 
erb which  was  so  often  on  His  lips,  there  He  still 
the  warning  and  the  inspiration  which  He  put  there. 
It  is  the  truth  of  a  live  world,  a  world  so  full  of 
life  that  into  it  nothing  can  fall  without  partaking 
of  its  life,  a  world  that  makes  the  good  grow  better 
and  the  bad  grow  worse  always.  If  the  world  is 
making  us  worse,  then  not  to  change  the  world,  but 
to  be  changed  ourselves,  is  what  we  need.  We 
must  be  regenerate  by  Christ,  and  then  the  world 
shall  become  His  schoolroom,  by  all  its  ministries 
bringing  us  more  and  more  perfectly  to  Him.  May 
He  give  us  His  new  life,  that  the  world  may  become 
new  to  us ! 


II. 

HALF-LIFE. 

"  Truth  shall  spring  out  of  the  earth,  and  righteousness  shall  look 
down  from  heaven." — Psalm  Ixxxv.  ii. 

Do  not  these  words  suggest  the  way  in  which  one 
part  of  every  life  stands  related  to  another  part  of 
the  same  life  ?  There  is  a  heaven  and  an  earth  in 
every  man  ;  first  in  his  nature,  then  in  his  experience ; 
and  it  is  on  the  cordial  working  together  of  these 
two  parts  of  his  life  that  the  healthiness  and  com- 
pleteness of  any  man's  existence  depend.  Think 
what  these  two  parts  are.  The  earth  of  every  man's 
life  is  what  we  are  apt  to  call,  in  our  loose,  super- 
ficial way,  its  practical  part.  It  is  that  which  has  to 
do  with  the  methods  and  machineries  of  his  exist- 
ence. It  is  made  up  of  numberless  details.  The 
house  in  which  he  lives,  the  food  he  eats,  the  busi- 
ness he  pursues,  the  places  where  he  travels,  the 
dress  he  wears,  the  amusements  in  which  he  finds 
recreation,  the  daily  plans  by  which  his  living  is 
conducted, —  these  make  the  earth,  the  lower  and 
terrestrial  level  of  his  life.  All  these  would  be 
altered  to  something  different  if  —  the  same  man 
still,  with  the  same  purposes  and  standards  which 
he  has  now  —  he  left  the  earth  and  went  to  live  on 


HALF-LIFE  21 

some  star  of  other  conditions  than  this  familiar  one 
of  ours. 

And  then,  always  over  and  around  this  world  of 
methods  and  machines,  as  the  sky  is  always  over  and 
around  the  earth,  there  is  the  world  of  purposes  and 
standards, — the  reasons  why  the  man  is  doing  these 
things,  as  distinct  from  the  mere  way  in  which  he 
does  them.  To  this  world  belong  all  the  affections, 
all  the  calm  or  tumultuous  passions  out  of  which 
actions  are  fed,  as  the  cornfields  are  fed  out  of  the 
brooding  or  the  hurrying  clouds.  To  this  world 
belong  religion,  all  lofty  and  inspiring  ideas,  all 
great  ambitions,  all  desire  for  culture, — everything 
which,  unseen,  is  yet  the  motive  and  the  force  by 
which  the  visible  activities  of  our  lives  are  set  and 
kept  in  motion.  These  make  the  heaven  of  our 
life.  These  would  go  on  essentially  the  same  in 
any  other  star.  They  are  not  dependent  on  the 
conditions  of  the  earth.  They  would  inspire  other 
conditions  if  these  present  ones  should  be  removed. 

Are  you  not  aware  of  these  two  regions  in  your 
life  ?  As,  standing  on  some  great  mountain,  you 
feel  the  solid  ground  under  your  feet,  and  see  the 
sweep  of  landscape,  mountain,  and  lake  and  plain 
and  river  all  around  you ;  and  then,  over  all,  the 
sky,  separate  from  the  earth,  yet  making  one  system 
with  it,  living  in  closest  relation  with  it,  and  meet- 
ing it  all  round  at  the  horizon, —  do  you  not  know 
these  two  worlds  in  your  life,  the  world  of  method 
and  the  world  of  motive,  the  world  of  deed  and  the 
world  of  thought,  the  world  of  embodiment  and 
the  world  of  inspiration,  the  world  of  what  and  the 


22  HALF-LIFE 

world  of  why — the  earth  and  the  heaven,  may  we 
not  call  them?  —  which  make  up  together  the  total 
system  of  your  life  ? 

And  now  the  suggestion  of  our  text  is  that,  in 
order  for  a  human  life  to  be  complete,  both  of  these 
two  worlds  must  be  active  and  both  of  them  must 
be  true.  If  either  of  them  is  inactive,  or  if  either 
of  them  is  false,  the  life  is  a  failure.  Truth  must 
spring  out  of  the  earth  and  righteousness  must  look 
down  from  heaven.  The  different  failures  to  which 
men's  different  lives  do  really  come  are  the  result 
of  the  different  ways  in  which  these  two  worlds  do 
not  work,  or  work  falsely,  or  do  not  work  in  har- 
mony. Let  us  study  this  a  little  while,  and  I  think 
we  shall  see  that  it  is  no  mere  theory,  but  the  simple 
story  of  what  is  going  on  always  in  the  world. 

The  easiest  and  most  obvious  illustration  of  our 
truth,  that  which  must  let  us  see  immediately  what 
it  means,  appears  in  what  we  call  the  fine  arts. 
There  the  two  worlds  are  most  distinct,  and  the 
need  of  their  harmonious  cooperation  is  most  mani- 
fest. You  go  into  a  sculptor's  workshop,  and  how 
evident  the  lower  world,  the  world  of  method,  is! 
The  tools  that  lie  around,  the  hard,  clear  block  of 
marble,  the  model  in  the  clay,  the  evident  need  of 
technical  skill  which  can  only  have  come  by  practice 
with  the  most  concrete  and  tangible  of  things, —  all 
that  is  clear.  But  how  the  whole  place  loses  its 
character,  and  is  nothing  but  a  mechanic's  factory 
unless,  behind  what  you  see,  you  are  clearly  aware 
of  the  unseen;  unless  the  place  is  full  of  presences, 
of  visions  and  ideas,  of  thoughts  of  beauty  which 


HALF-LIFE  23 

are  to  be  embodied  in  forms  of  beauty  through  the 
means  of  all  this  visible  matter  and  this  technical 
skill.     Here  are  two  worlds;  and  evidently  both  of 
them  are  necessary,  or  you   have  no  sculpture  and 
no  sculptor.     Leave  out  the  world  of  method,  and 
you  have  only  a  dreamer  left,  who  thinks  of  statues 
and  never  carves  a  stone.     Leave  out  the  world  of 
motive,  and   you   have  only  an  artisan,  who  cuts 
statues  as  another  artisan  cuts  doorsteps,  with  no 
vision,  no  meaning,  no   idea  to   make   them   live. 
Both  worlds  must  be  there  and  both  must  be  true. 
Falseness  in  either  ruins  the  result.     You  must  have 
purity,  loftiness,  and  truth  in  the  conception  which 
you  want  to  embody,  and  you  must  have  simplicity, 
straightforwardness,  and  reality,  freedom  from  arti- 
ficialness  and  trick,   in  the  technique  by  which  you 
work,  or  you  make  nothing  worthy  of  the  name  of 
statue.     Given  these  two,— truth  in  the  world  of 
imagination  and  idea,  and  truth  in  the  world  of  exe- 
cution,—and  then  the  Venus  of  Milo  or  the  Dying 
Gladiator  comes. 

We  have  not,  most  of  us,  to  carve  statues,  but  we 
have  all  of  us  to  live  lives;  and  so  I  turn  at  once  to 
see  how  this  our  truth  applies,  not  to  a  special  art, 
f^ne  or  coarse  (though  it  does  apply  to  them  all), 
but  to  the  general  conduct  of  a  life.  And  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  result  to  which  our  thought  about  it 
brings  us  is  this :  that  there  are  four  kinds  of  men- 
four  kinds  of  characters,  three  of  them  weak  and 
imperfect,  one  of  them  complete  and  strong  — who 
may  be  conceivably  produced  by  the  imperfect  or 
the  perfect   relations  of  these   two  worlds  to  one 


24  HALF-LIFE 

another.  All  of  these  four  kinds  of  men  are  actually 
produced  and  live  among  us.  Let  us  describe  them 
to  ourselves,  and  try  to  learn  some  of  their  lessons. 

I  said,  then,  that  both  of  the  worlds,  the  world 
of  motive  and  the  world  of  method,  as  I  called  them, 
must  be  active  in  every  man,  and  that  they  must 
work  in  harmony  with  one  another,  to  make  the 
perfect  man.  You  will  see  at  once  where  the  im- 
perfect kinds  of  men  will  come  from.  There  will 
evidently  be:  ist,  the  men  in  whom  the  world  of 
motive  is  alive,  but  not  the  world  of  method ;  2d, 
the  men  in  whom  the  world  of  method  is  alive,  but 
not  the  world  of  motive;  and  3d,  the  men  in  whom 
both  worlds  are  at  work,  but  work  on  different  prin- 
ciples and  keep  no  harmony  with  one  another. 

I.  How  common  the  first  kind  of  defect  is,  we  all 
know,  I  am  sure,  only  too  well.  We  see  it  in  our 
brethren;  we  feel  it  in  ourselves.  Wherever  a  man 
lets  himself  be  satisfied  with  ardent  aspirations  which 
never  go  forth  in  deeds,  or  with  admiration  of  good- 
ness which  does  not  utter  itself  in  some  struggle  for 
the  increase  of  goodness  in  the  world,  have  we  not 
got  exactly  this:  Righteousness  looking  down  from 
heaven,  but  no  truth  springing  out  of  the  earth  to 
meet  it  ?  How  long  she  may  lean  over  the  golden 
walls,  and  look  and  look  in  vain  down  to  the  dull, 
unresponsive  earth  !  You  let  your  mind  dwell  upon 
the  misery  of  poverty,  the  wretchedness  and  terrible 
temptations  of  the  poor,  —  how  dreadful,  how  mys- 
terious are  these  inequalities  of  human  life;  the 
advantages  of  one,  the  disadvantages  of  another! 
How  rich  the  opportunity,  how  pressing  the  neces- 


HALF-LIFE  2$ 

sity  that  they  who  /lave  should  give  not  merely 
money,  but  time  and  thought  and  sympathy,  in  help 
of  these  others  who  /iaz'£'  not  ;  that  the  i  ich  and  happy 
should  freely  bestow  themselves  on  the  poor  and 
wretched!  Your  soul  is  filled  with  these  ideas.  It 
not  merely  is  filled  with  them;  it  glows  with  them. 
The  theory  is  perfect.  The  conviction  is  complete. 
And  then  comes  the  demand  for  action.  The  poor 
man  stands  before  your  door.  The  special  problem 
clamors  for  solution.  And  where  are  you  ?  You 
have  stopped  short  upon  the  borders  of  your  theory, 
and  are  loitering  in  the  mists  of  your  enthusiasm, 
and  all  the  need  of  vigorous  action  cries  out  for  you 
in  vain. 

Or  take  a  case  that  concerns  only  your  own  per- 
sonal life.  You  have  some  vice,  some  bad  way  of 
living,  and  who  is  there  so  clear  and  cogent  as  you 
are  to  reason  about  it  ?  Who  will  so  clearly  show 
its  evil  origin,  its  mischievous  result  ?  Who  will  be 
so  earnest  in  praise  of  the  man  who  with  a  manly 
resolution  breaks  the  chains  of  this  bad  habit,  and 
in  spite  of  all  the  pain  which  the  struggle  costs  him 
goes  out  free  ?  And  yet  you  go  back  over  and  over 
again  to  your  abused  and  detested  habit,  and  the 
new  years  as  they  come  one  after  another  find  you 
still  its  slave. 

I  am  telling  a  most  familiar  story.  It  is  what  we 
have  all  seen  and  felt  all  our  lives.  It  is  the  old 
story  of  unfulfilled  purposes  and  enthusiasms  that 
disappear  like  dreams.  The  world  is  ready  with 
its  explanation.  It  always  makes  its  easy  ex- 
planations of  complicated  situations,  and  is  quite 


26  HALF-LIFE 

sure  that  they  are  right.  The  world  cries  out, 
"Hypocrisy!"  It  believes  that  the  enthusiastic 
purpose  which  failed  before  it  came  to  action  was 
unreal.  It  laughs  at  the  brave  young  reformer  who 
was  going  to  renew  the  world,  and  whose  sword  is 
missing  when  the  battle  morning  breaks,  and  says, 
"  You  see  there  was  nothing  in  his  boasting.  He 
meant  nothing.     It  was  all  insincere." 

The  world  is  wrong.  The  problem  is  by  no 
means  such  an  easy  one  as  that.  There  is  such  a 
thing  as  hypocrisy,  of  course  ;  but  the  chance  is  that 
this  is  not  hypocrisy.  It  is  half-life.  It  is  life  only 
in  the  world  of  motive  and  not  in  the  world  of 
method.  It  is  righteousness  looking  down  from 
heaven  without  truth  springing  out  of  the  earth. 
These  high  enthusiasms  are  thoroughly  real,  per- 
fectly sincere.  It  is  simply  that  these  men  live  in 
the  region  of  emotion  and  idea,  and  very  probably 
the  lower  world  of  action  seems  almost  contempt- 
ible to  them.  They  almost  despise  it.  It  belongs 
to  lower  souls.     Their  part  in  life  is  loftier. 

No  doubt,  in  time,  this  partial  life  tends  to  be- 
come unreal  even  in  the  part  of  it  which  does  exist. 
An  unused  conviction  always  tends  to  insincerity. 
But  it  is  real  enough  as  it  glows  upon  the  lips  of 
the  young  enthusiast  —  this  outcry  of  high  motive 
which  never  lays  a  finger  to  the  tasks  it  paints  so 
glowingly.  The  experience  of  how  much  there  is 
of  it  in  the  world  is  what  makes  sad  and  pathetic 
the  sight  and  sound  of  the  college,  full  of  high 
thoughts  of  life,  and  the  hosts  of  brave  young 
thinkers  there,  kindling  with  the  reading  of  great 


HALF-LIFE  2/ 

books   and   looking  as   if   they   could  not  wait  for 
graduation  day  to  save  the  world. 

2.  With  this  sort  of  failure  in  your  mind  turn 
suddenly  and  look  at  another  which  is  just  its  oppo- 
site. Here  is  the  man  who  lives  only  in  the  other 
world,  the  world  of  method.  As  he  of  whom  we 
have  been  speaking  never  came  forward  out  of  the 
region  of  enthusiasm  into  the  region  of  action,  so 
this  man  never  allows  the  region  of  action  to  have 
any  background  of  enthusiasm.  That  the  thing 
should  be  done  is  everything.  That  there  should 
be  a  fine,  high,  spiritual  reason  why  it  should  be 
done  is  nothing.  Such  men,  I  sometimes  think, 
have  grown  most  common  in  our  time.  They  are 
of  every  occupation.  There  are  professors  very 
learned,  very  faithful,  very  skilful  in  all  the  techni- 
cal details  of  teaching,  who  will  grow  silent  or  grow 
scornful  if  you  suggest  the  higher,  the  religious, 
purposes  of  learning,  the  duty  to  one's  own  nature, 
to  society,  to  God,  which  constitute  the  ultimate 
reason  why  one  should  be  learned  at  all.  There  are 
business  men,  honest  and  charitable  and  intelligent 
to  a  degree  which  fills  the  whole  business  world  in 
which  they  move  with  light,  who  are  utterly  be- 
wildered if  you  bid  them  think  of  the  relation  of 
business  to  the  Brotherhood  of  Man  and  to  the  Re- 
demption by  Jesus  of  the  earth  into  completeness  as 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  There  are  philanthropists 
the  inspiration  of  whose  philanthropy  never  gets 
above  the  economics  of  alms-giving  and  the  waste- 
fulness of  poverty.  There  are  politicians  enough 
to  whom  the  state  is  a  great  machine  of  wonderful 


28  HALF-LIFE 

complexity  and  fineness,  but  with  no  divine  pur- 
pose, no  possibility  of  character.  Nay,  strangest  of 
all,  there  are  religious  men  and  women  who,  above 
all  things,  would  guard  religion  from  becoming 
overspiritual.  Ask  them  why  they  are  religious, 
why  they  go  to  church,  why  they  say  prayers,  why 
they  send  missionaries  to  the  heathen,  why  they 
read  the  Bible,  and  they  will  give  you  dry  and 
dreary  answers  about  religion  being  a  natural  crav- 
ing of  the  human  soul;  or,  drearier  still,  about  its 
being  so  helpful  to  the  order  of  society.  Not  one 
word  of  eager  and  impulsive  utterance  of  the  child's 
yearning  for  the  Father's  love,  or  of  the  sinner's 
gratitude  for  the  Saviour's  glorious  salvation!  All 
is  of  the  earth:  nothing  is  of  the  heaven.  It  is 
faithfulness,  intelligence,  truth,  springing  up  from 
below,  not  looking  down  from  above. 

I  know  and  I  think  that  I  value  fully  the  better 
feeling  which  is  mixed  up  with  all  of  this.  I  know 
the  dread  of  vagueness  and  sentimentality.  I  know 
the  impatience  with  tiresome  gush  and  enthusiasm 
that  fail  when  it  comes  to  work,  the  contempt  for 
the  mere  pretence  of  lofty  purpose,  which  by  and 
by  cries  out,  "  Let  motive  go,  and  simply  do  your 
work.  What  the  world  wants  is  that  the  students 
should  be  taught,  the  asylum  founded,  the  railroad 
built,  the  Church  service  maintained."  All  that  is 
very  natural,  and  also  very  shallow.  Because  there 
is  sentimentality,  no  man  has  a  right  to  disown  the 
power  of  true  sentiment.  Because  there  is  hypocrisy, 
what  right  has  any  man  to  say  he  never  will  be  en- 
thusiastic ?     Because  the  sky  breeds  fogs,  does  that 


HALF-LIFE  29 

give  any  man  the  right  to  build  the  low  roof  ten  feet 
over  his  head,  and  live  in  his  poor  cabin  as  if  there 
were  no  mystery  of  sky  beyond  ?  Because  fanatics 
have  had  their  heads  turned  by  the  Book  of  the 
Revelation,  must  you  abolish  the  vision  of  the  New 
Jerusalem  from  the  vistas  of  your  life  ? 

The  danger  which  comes  with  such  a  fault  and 
folly  is  manifest  enough.  Let  it  grow  to  be  the 
habit  of  the  world;  let  great,  enthusiastic  motives 
cease  to  be  felt  as  the  inspirations  of  the  world's 
activity,  and  sooner  or  later  that  activity  must  lose 
its  quality  of  faithfulness;  and  even  while  it  main- 
tains that  quality,  and  while  men  keep  on  working 
hard  without  any  supply  from  the  most  profound 
depths  and  the  loftiest  heights  of  their  natures,  still 
their  work  must  lose  its  breadth,  and  degenerate 
into  tricks  and  artifices.  This  is  what,  I  think,  we 
have  to  fear  more  than  anything  to-day: — not  a 
loss  of  the  intensity  of  industry,  but  a  loss  of  the 
nobility  of  industry;  work  done  upon  the  lower 
and  not  upon  the  higher  plane,  and  so  not  rendering 
the  best  result  to  the  worker,  nor  giving  the  largest 
inspiration  to  the  progress  of  the  world;  business 
done  sordidly,  government  conducted  mechanically, 
learning  gained  and  given  mercenarily,  religion  prac- 
tised formally,  life  in  general  relying  for  its  im- 
pulses upon  the  needs  which  spring  out  of  the  earth, 
not  upon  the  inspirations  which  come  down  from 
heaven.  May  God  save  us  from  these  things,  and 
preserve  for  us  and  in  us  not  merely  the  activity, 
but  the  nobility  of  labor  and  of  life! 

3.   I  have  depicted  two  kinds  of  failure.     Let  me 


30  HALF-LIFE 

say  a  few  words  about  a  third,  which  is  less  simple, 
more  subtle  than  these  two.  I  have  spoken  of  the 
man  who  lives  only  in  the  region  of  his  affections  and 
enthusiasms,  in  the  world  of  motive,  and  leaves  the 
world  of  method  and  action  unattempted  ;  and  then 
of  the  other  man  who  lives  only  in  the  lower  world, 
and  will  not  meddle  with  enthusiasms  and  high  im- 
pulses at  all.  There  is  another  man,  as  I  suggested, 
in  whom  both  worlds  are  active,  but  in  whom  they 
work  contradictorily  and  will  not  keep  time  with 
one  another. 

Have  you  never  known  the  man  with  two  con- 
sciences ?  Have  you  never  known  the  man  with 
the  higher  and  the  lower  conscience  ?  One  of  the 
consciences  was  active  in  the  region  of  his  specula- 
tions and  emotions,  the  other  in  the  region  of  his 
practical,  active  life,  and  they  were  hostile  each  to 
each.  They  were  both  consciences.  They  both 
were  based  on  the  idea  of  duty,  but  they  were  set 
in  opposition  to  each  other,  and  confusion  was  the 
result.  One  or  two  instances  will  illustrate  my 
meaning. 

Here  is  a  man  who,  in  the  higher  region  of  life, 
has  accepted  the  duty  of  Humility.  The  more  he 
reasons,  the  more  he  sets  himself  in  the  presence  of 
the  sublimest  truths,  the  more  he  always  is  aware 
that  to  be  humble  is  the  only  worthy  position  for  a 
man  all  full  of  weakness  and  defect.  He  has  stood 
in  the  sight  of  God,  and  felt  how  insignificant  he  is. 
He  has  looked  the  possibilities  of  his  own  life  in  the 
face  and  been  ashamed  of  what  he  is  beside  what 
he  might  be.     "  I  must  be  humble,"  he  has  said; 


HALF-LIFE  3T 

"  what  right  have  /to  boast  ?  My  only  chance  for 
any  comfort  is  in  owning  frankly  to  myself  and 
everybody  else  what  a  poor  thing  I  am." 

Now,  that  is  perfectly  honest  and  sincere.  The 
man  in  his  closet  says  that  to  God  and  to  himself 
with  all  his  heart.  And  then  he  goes  out  from  his 
closet  to  his  business.  The  world  lays  claim  to 
him.  Tangible  things  to  do,  concrete  questions  to 
answer,  meet  him  on  every  hand.  Do  you  not 
know  how  often  a  new  sense  of  duty  comes  up  in 
the  street,  which  is  different  from  that  which  filled 
the  closet  ?  What  can  a  humble  man  do  in  scenes 
like  these  ?  Has  a  man  a  right  to  be  humble  here 
where  self-confidence  is  the  first  element  of  strength  ? 
Does  not  humility  mean  self-obliteration  ?  And  so 
the  man  who,  when  he  thought  abstractly,  philo- 
sophically, and  religiously,  accepted  the  obligation  of 
humility,  when  he  comes  to  act  practically  and  con- 
cretely, finds  it  his  duty  to  be  proud.  In  the  same 
way,  the  duty  of  trust  and  confidence  and  cordial 
faith  in  man  seems  to  be  met  in  common  life  by  the 
counter-duty  of  suspicion.  "  I  have  no  right,"  says 
the  confiding  man,  "  in  this  world  of  wickedness,  to 
indulge  a  faith  in  man  which  will  only  make  me  the 
victim  of  his  wiles."  In  the  same  way,  the  man 
who,  in  the  higher  region,  bids  himself  hope,  forces 
on  himself  in  common  things  the  necessity  of  fear. 
So  he  who  knows  in  general  that  man  is  meant  to 
be  tender  and  sensitive  hardens  himself  with  some 
base  alloy  when  he  goes  among  his  brethren,  as  if  so 
only  he  could  be  of  any  use.  So  the  obligation  of 
perfect  truthfulness  is  met  by  the  practical  necessity 


32  HALF-LIFE 

of  a  limitation  of  candor  which  really  is  deceit,  and 
which  pleads  for  itself  in  the  sacred  names  of  pity 
and  justice. 

You  see  what  all  this  means.  It  is  not  simply 
that  high  motives  melt  and  weaken  when  you  try 
to  put  them  into  action.  It  is  that  the  world  of 
action  seems  to  have  different  standards  of  duty 
from  the  world  of  thought.  Those  which  seem  im- 
perative in  one  appear  impossible  in  the  other. 
There  are  plenty  of  cases  where  we  do  not  carry 
our  religion  into  common  life  because  we  are  cow- 
ardly or  indolent  or  selfish.  The  real  trouble  comes 
when,  being  perfectly  ready  to  carry  our  religion 
into  common  life,  we  dare  not  carry  it  there  be- 
cause it  seems  as  if  our  religion  there  would  do  not 
good,  but  harm  ;  because  it  seems  as  if  that  common 
life  bred  its  own  duties,  and  would  not  tolerate 
these  that  come  down  to  it  from  above.  There 
comes  the  deepest  confusion.  That  is  the  real  per- 
plexity in  which  multitudes  of  business  men  are 
struggling  on  year  after  year.  When  they  first  met 
the  difificulty  as  young  Christian  clerks,  it  filled 
them  with  dismay.  Since  that  they  have  long  ago 
settled  down  into  a  dull  hopelessness  of  its  solution, 
and  take  it  as  a  thing  of  course.  But  it  is  still  the 
oppression  of  their  lives.  The  heaven  and  the  earth 
which  are  in  them  will  not  harmonize,  and  neither 
of  them  can  they  cast  away,  or  bid  to  yield  in  abso- 
lute subjection  to  the  other. 

4.  And  what  then  ?  Is  there  any  solution  ?  Is 
there  any  harmony  of  these  two  discordant  parts  of 
this  one  life?     Is  this  third  failure  a  hopeless  failure? 


HALF-LIFE  33 

Must  a  man  escape  from  partialness  only  to  fall  into 
confusion  ? 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  positive  which  stands 
over  against  all  these  negatives — to  the  description 
of  the  sort  of  life  which  is  not  a  failure,  to  which 
the  study  of  these  failure-lives  must  have  been  help- 
ing us.  I  wish  that  we  could  fill  our  minds  at  once 
with  a  picture  which  will  bear  witness  to  us  of  its 
own  possibility  of  being  realized.  It  is  the  picture 
of  a  man  alive  all  through,  from  the  summit  to  the 
foundation,  in  the  celestial  and  the  terrestrial  por- 
tions of  his  life.  It  is  the  picture  of  a  man  who 
never  thinks  a  high  thought  without  instantly  seek- 
ing to  send  it  forth  into  its  fitting  action  ;  who  never 
undertakes  an  active  duty  without  struggling  to  set 
behind  it  its  profoundest  motive.  He  is  one  total 
man.  The  heavenly  part  of  him  is  not  vague  be- 
cause it  is  so  high;  and  the  earthly  part  of  him,  the 
lower  part,  is  not  counted  wicked  or  contemptible. 
It  knows  its  place,  and,  filling  it  completely,  is  full 
of  dignity  and  peace. 

I  say  that  such  a  picture,  when  we  set  it  before 
our  imagination,  in  some  true  sense  proves  itself. 
Our  human  nature,  disappointed  with  many  failures, 
recognizes  its  true  idea,  and  says,  "  That  is  what 
I  was  meant  to  be!"  And  then,  when  we  look 
earnestly  around  to  see  how  we,  in  our  personal 
life,  may  indeed  come  to  be  that,  we  find  ourselves 
at  once  in  contact  with  a  truth  to  which  we  always 
are  returning.  That  truth  is,  that  whenever  man 
thinks  of  himself  as  a  composite  being,  a  being  made 
up  of  parts  and   therefore  liable  to  inconsistency, 


34  HALF-LIFE 

liable  to  fall  apart,  he  finds  that  he  needs  God 
for  his  power  of  coherence,  he  needs  God  for 
the  element  in  which  his  inconsistency  may  be 
reconciled  with  itself  and  the  whole  nature  find  its 
harmony.  Here,  here  alone,  is  where  our  three 
failures  must  disappear,  and  the  only  true  success 
of  human  life  come  in  their  place.  "  The  heaven 
is  His  throne;  the  earth  also  is  His  footstool," — 
let  those  words  come  to  mean  for  us  that  there  is 
no  highest  thought  or  emotion  which  is  not  subject 
to  His  will,  and  no  least  plan  or  action  which  does 
not  rejoice  to  put  itself  at  His  feet;  and  then,  in 
common  obedience  to  Him,  the  discord  between 
the  higher  and  the  lower  life  must  disappear,  and 
the  whole  man,  as  the  child  of  God,  be  all  one,  and 
all  alive. 

I  turn  to  the  character  and  the  career  of  Jesus, 
and  all  of  this  is  plain.  That  wonderful  character 
and  career  may  be  summed  up  in  many  ways.  It 
shapes  itself  ever  into  a  new  orb  of  beauty  as  one 
sees  it  ever  from  a  new  side.  In  our  summary  of 
it,  may  we  not  say  that  it  represents  the  higher  and 
the  lower  life  of  man,  harmonized  within  the  obe- 
dience of  God  ?  It  was  because  Jesus  was  always 
perfectly  consecrated  to  His  Father  that  the  most 
exalted  enthusiasm  was  never  dissipated  into  a 
dream,  and  the  simplest  task  was  never  degraded 
into  a  drudgery.  We  love  to  think  how  Jesus  never 
intimated  the  least  contempt  for  common  things. 
Contempt  for  common  things  is  apt  to  be  the  feeble 
and  desperate  resort  of  men  who  cannot  keep  them 
from  intruding  into  an  importance  where  they  have 


HALF-LIFE  35 

no  right,  and  so  would  tread  them  under  foot  and  out 
of  existence  altogether.  He  who  is  in  no  danger  of 
overvaluing  them  is  prepared  to  give  them  their  true 
value,  and  finds  it  easy.  "  These  ought  ye  to  have 
done,  and  not  to  leave  the  other  undone."  "  Your 
Father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of  these  things." 
"  Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  right- 
eousness, and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto 
you."  What  a  poise  and  balance  there  is  in  all 
those  words!  What  an  entire  absence  of  contempt 
for  common  things!  "The  common  is  not  wicked," 
they  declare,  "only  less  and  lower.  Therefore  it  is 
not  to  be  abolished,  only  kept  in  its  true,  second 
place." 

How  different  this  voice  is  from  that  which  has 
come  from  many  of  the  seekers  after  spirituality  in 
all  religions  and  in  every  time!  All  asceticism  tries 
to  increase  the  exaltation  of  the  higher  life  by  de- 
faming and  as  far  as  possible  abolishing  the  lower, 
which  is  as  if  you  tried  to  make  the  sky  loftier  by 
destroying  the  earth  and  doing  away  with  the  hori- 
zon. Or  if  asceticism  recognizes  that  the  total  man 
must  be  made  up  of  heaven  and  earth  together,  it 
finds  the  fulfilment  of  this  necessity  in  the  general 
humanity.  Let  a  few  men  and  women,  priests, 
monks,  nuns,  what  we  will  call  Religious  people, 
live  the  spiritual  life;  and  let  the  rest  of  men  do  the 
plain  duties  of  their  ordinary  stations;  and  so  the 
race,  as  a  great  whole,  will  be  complete.  Each  part 
will  see  fulfilled  in  the  other  part  that  which  it  can- 
not fulfil  in  itself.  To  think  that  each  man  can  livfC 
in  the  heaven  and  the  earth  at  the  same  tim-cis/a 


36  HALF-LIFE 

delusion.  Against  all  that,  Christ's  life  and  words 
and  work  are  a  perpetual  protest.  He  bids  each 
man  be  entire.  He  says  to  every  one:  This  you 
must  do  and  yet  not  leave  the  other  undone.  All 
His  New  Testament  is  full  of  that.  Strange,  that 
with  the  great  Christian  Book  so  clear  about  it,  the 
old  false  division  — the  assignment  of  the  heavenly 
life  alone  to  one  set  of  men,  and  of  the  earthly  alone 
to  another  set  of  men  —  should  have  so  fastened 
itself  in  Christianity! 

You  say,  indeed, — how  men  are  always  saying  it! 
how  terribly  familiar  it  has  grown! — you  say,  "  I 
am  not  spiritual;  I  cannot  be.  My  possibilities  on 
that  side  are  very  small ;  somebody  must  do  my 
spirituality  for  me.  Enough  for  me  if  I  can  creep 
through  the  common  tasks  of  common  life  with 
decency."  Of  such  talk  from  anybody  let  us  make 
little  account.  We  make  less  and  less  account  of 
it,  I  think,  the  longer  that  we  know  our  fellow-men. 
At  any  rate,  however  much  it  may  mean  when  a 
kind  man  uses  it  about  his  brother-man,  making  for 
him  such  excuse  as  seems  possible,  any  man  ought 
to  be  ashamed  to  use  it  in  self-excuse  about  himself. 
The  truth  is,  my  dear  friends,  for  any  man  in  this 
short  fragment  of  a  life  of  ours  to  dare  to  think  or 
say  that  he  has  understood  the  limits  of  his  possi- 
bilities is  worse  than  folly.  It  is  almost  blasphemy. 
What  do  you  think  of  the  boy  that  stands  up  at  the 
age  of  ten,  and  looks  you  in  the  eye,  and  says  that, 
as  he  has  found  he  has  no  faculty  for  language,  he 

'-proposes  to  deal  with  his  language-books  no  longer  ? 

i'Do  you  not  bid  him  learn  a  little  self-respect  and 


HALF-LIFE  37 

modesty  together,  and  send  him  back  speedily  to 
his  grammar  and  dictionary  ?  And  we  are  not 
children  of  ten  yet  in  our  long  life  of  immortality! 
Before  us  stretches  so  far  away  the  long  experience, 
so  dim,  so  calm,  so  certain,  so  certainly  full  of  richer 
conditions  and  a  perpetual  development  of  this 
mysterious  humanity  of  ours.  What  will  you  say 
to  the  pert  little  man  who  stands  up  sharp  in  the 
midst  of  the  concrete  trifles  of  his  busy  life,  and 
says,  "Oh,  I  cannot  be  spiritual.  I  have  no  faculty 
of  prayer.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  find  God,  or 
even  to  seek  after  Him."  Will  you  not  say,  "  Be 
more  modest,  and  so  have  more  respect  for  your- 
self! Go  back  to  your  closet  and  your  Bible,  and 
do  not  dare  to  say  what  possibilities  God  has  put 
into  that  nature  of  yours,  which  He  made,  till  you 
are  older,  a  great  deal  older  than  you  are  now;  yea, 
till  you  are  old  as  eternity!  " 

Think  of  the  other  tone.  Think  of  the  man  who 
says,  **  So  long  as  I  live,  until  eternity  shall  end,  I 
never  will  cease  to  hope  that  out  of  the  depths  of 
my  nature,  hopeless  as  it  seems,  may  open  the 
power  to  be  that  which,  as  I  have  seen  it  in  the  best 
souls  among  my  race,  is  the  best  thing  that  a  man 
can  be  —  a  lover  of  God,  and  a  dweller  with  Him 
among  heavenly  thoughts  and  motives."  When  a 
man  is  saying  that  with  all  his  heart,  then  how 
ready  he  is  for  the  words  of  Jesus:  "  He  that  hath 
seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father."  "  No  man  cometh 
unto  the  Father  but  by  Me."  Then  comes,  "  I 
will  go  to  Him,  to  Christ,  and  find  God!  How 
long,  how  slow,  how  hard  the  journey  through  Him, 


38  HALF-LIFE 

through  Christ,  to  God  may  be,  I  do  not  know  ;  but 
henceforth,  in  this  world  and  in  whatever  world  may 
lie  beyond,  I  will  go  on  and  on  and  on  through 
Christ  to  God."  With  that  determination  made, 
with  that  journey  begun,  eternity  is  not  too  long; 
nor  has  this  world,  nor  any  other,  the  temptation 
which  can  turn  the  man  aside  from  his  eternal  search. 
O,  you  who  have  begun  that  search,  be  content, 
for  at  the  last  it  must  succeed.  O,  all  of  you,  be 
sure  that  life  is  not  really  life  for  you  until  you  have 
begun  that  search  for  God  through  Christ!  Be  sure 
that  when  through  Christ  you  have  found  God,  then, 
and  not  till  then,  will  the  harmony  of  your  whole 
life,  totally  submitted  in  all  its  parts  to  Him,  be 
perfect;  then  in  you  shall  this  great  text  which  we 
have  studied  now  so  long  be  perfectly  fulfilled: 
"  Truth  shall  spring  out  of  the  earth,  and  righteous- 
ness shall  look  down  from  heaven!  " 


III. 

THE    POWER   OF   AN    UNCERTAIN 
FUTURE. 

"  Watch  therefore,  for  ye  know  neither  the  day  nor  the  hour 
wherein  the  Son  of  man  cometh." — Matthew  xxv.  13. 

Jesus  spoke  these  words  at  the  close  of  the  Para- 
ble of  the  Ten  Virgins.  The  people  were  still  under 
the  impression  that  the  parable  had  made  upon 
them.  It  is  the  air  of  expectancy  that  pervades  it 
which  gives  the  parable  its  character.  It  all  looks 
forward.  It  is  busied  with  the  future,  not  the  past. 
The  waiting  virgins,  the  sleepless  eyes,  the  well- 
filled  lamps,  and  then  the  hurried  stir,  the  rustling 
garments,  the  passing  voices,  and  the  opening  and 
closing  doors, — all  the  movement  is  expectant,  and 
is  full  of  one  idea:  Be  ready,  for  a  future  is  coming 
— new  issues — nev\-  destinies — new  duties.  Forget 
the  past!      Look  forward  ! 

That  is  the  tone  of  the  parable,  and  it  is  the  tone 
of  the  Gospel  always.  Stretching  out  into  an  infin- 
ite distance,  it  shows  the  endless  future  of  human 
life.  It  lays  its  hand  upon  every  soul  that  is  asleep 
and  says,  "  Wake,  for  your  work  is  not  done  yet." 
New   developments   of   truth,    new   perfections   of 

39 


40   THE  POWER  OF  AN  UNCERTAIN  FUTURE 

character,  and  infinite  plans  of  God  in  which  we  are 
to  take  part, — these  are  the  burden  of  the  Gospel, 
and  of  the  spirit  of  these  the  Parable  of  the  Ten 
Virgins  is  full.  It  is  all  alive  with  expectancy.  It 
is  a  parable  of  the  Future.  "  Behold  the  Bride- 
groom Cometh !  " 

There  are  times,  I  think,  when  this  character  of 
the  Gospel  seems  hard  and  almost  cruel  to  us. 
There  are  times  when  the  thought  of  expectancy 
is  oppressive.  Sometimes  the  soul  is  simply  weary, 
and  wants  to  lie  down  and  go  no  farther.  It  seems 
to  have  done  enough,  to  have  lived  enough.  There 
is  much  in  the  past  which  is  precious  to  it,  but  the 
thought  of  going  on  and  making  new  history  for  it- 
self is  dreadful  to  it.  Life  seems  behind  it.  To 
turn  and  see  that  life  is  yet  before  it  seems  very 
hard.  But  always  the  Gospel  keeps  its  character. 
It  will  allow  no  resting  in  the  past  or  in  the  present. 
It  is  always  holding  up  its  future  and  insisting  that 
its  disciples  should  live  in  "  the  power  of  an  endless 
life." 

But  this  verse  of  warning  which  comes  at  the  end 
of  the  parable  has  one  special  point.  It  brings  out 
one  kind  of  power  in  the  anticipations  of  the  fu- 
ture which  is  very  striking.  "  Watch,"  Jesus  says, 
"  not  merely  because  there  is  to  be  a  future,  but 
because  you  cannot  know  what  the  future  is. 
Watch,  for  you  know  neither  the  day  nor  the  hour 
wherein  the  Son  of  man  cometh."  Here  is  a  sort  of 
life  enjoined — watchfulness.  I  hope  we  shall  see 
clearly  enough  before  we  are  done  that  watchfulness 
is  not  a  single  act,  nor  a  special  habit,  but  a  whole 


THE    POWER   OF   AN   UNCERTAIN   FUTURE       4I 

new  character  of  a  man's  life.  And  this  character 
of  a  whole  life  is  represented  as  coming  out  of  the 
fact  that  the  future  of  the  life  is  uncertain.  There 
is  one  sort  of  life  that  a  man  will  live  who  antici- 
pates no  future  at  all,  who  lives  wholly  in  the  pres- 
ent. There  is  another  sort  of  life  for  the  man  whose 
future  is  all  clear  before  him,  all  ticketed  and  dated. 
There  is  yet  another  life  for  the  man  who  knows 
that  larger  and  stranger  things  are  coming  than  he 
comprehends,  who  expects  surprises.  I  want  to 
speak  of  this  last  kind  of  life.  Our  subject  is  "The 
Power  of  an  Uncertain  Future."  "  Watch,  there- 
fore, for  ye  know  neither  the  day  nor  the  hour 
wherein  the  Son  of  man  cometh." 

We  have  one  illustration  of  our  subject  always 
before  us  in  the  life  of  childhood.  I  suppose  that 
it  would  not  be  possible  to  get  a  better  idea  of  what 
Jesus  meant  by  the  watchfulness  that  would  become 
the  character  of  one  who  was  always  looking  for  His 
undated  coming,  than  we  should  have  if  we  could 
understand  perfectly  the  strong  and  subtle  influence 
which  the  uncertainty  and  apparent  infiniteness  of 
the  life  before  him  has  upon  a  child.  The  alert- 
ness, the  receptivity,  the  modesty,  the  eagerness 
and  easy  enlargement  or  readiness  for  great  things, 
which  belong  to  the  best  childhood,  seem  to  me  to 
be  the  very  qualities  which  the  Gospel  is  always  try- 
ing to  make  in  Christians,  and  all  these  qualities 
belong  essentially  to  the  uncertainty  with  which  a 
child's  future  hovers  before  his  eyes.  If  you  could 
take  a  very  high  average  of  human  attainment, 
something  considerably  beyond  what  the  majority 


42   THE  POWER  OF  AN  UNCERTAIN  FUTURE 

of  men  have  reached,  and  fix  that  as  the  uniform 
level  of  men's  accomplishment,  if  you  could  decree 
absolutely  that  every  life  should  go  just  as  far  as 
that  and  no  life  should  go  any  farther,  you  certainly 
would  have  taken  the  spring  out  of  the  ambition  of 
very  many  young  aspiring  souls.  You  would  have 
taken  away  the  uncertainty,  and  so  you  would  have 
destroyed  the  romance  and  attractiveness.  Prob- 
ably not  half  of  them  will  reach  that  line,  but 
probably  those  who  do  reach  it  will  go  beyond  it 
if  you  do  not  set  them  a  limit  there,  but  leave  them 
all  infinity  to  aspire  into.  One  will  certainly  shoot 
his  arrows  higher  if  he  shoots  them  out-of-doors, 
with  all  the  sky  to  shoot  them  into,  than  if  he  sends 
them  up  against  the  ceiling  of  a  room  that  seems 
just  as  high  as  he  can  reach. 

And  so  it  is  the  child's  uncertainty  about  his  life 
that  gives  it  all  those  characteristics  that  I  spoke  of. 
He  does  not  know  which  way  it  will  go.  It  is  full 
of  wonderment.  Every  door  tempts  him  to  open 
it,  to  see  what  lies  beyond.  Every  corner  tempts 
him  to  turn  it.  And  so,  just  as  you  or  I,  going  to 
Paris  or  London,  will  walk  more  in  a  day  than  any 
Londoner  or  Parisian  in  three,  because  our  curiosity 
is  always  kept  alive  by  the  uncertainties  of  the  un- 
familiar streets, — so  the  child  will  make  more  char- 
acter in  a  week  than  we  grown  people  will  in 
months,  because  life,  not  having  yet  hardened  itself 
into  routines  and  certainties,  is  always  vividly  inter- 
esting to  him  and  is  always  enticing  him  a  little 
farther  on. 

There  must  be  grown  men,  old  men,  here  to-day. 


THE    POWER   OF   AN    UNCERTAIN   FUTURE       43 

who  look  back  to  nothing  with  such  wistful  longing 
as  to  the  interest  that  life  had  for  them  when  they 
were  children.  Can  it  be,  indeed,  that  this  dull  and 
faded  thing  is  the  same  that  once  flashed  and 
sparkled  with  such  bewitching  colors?  Living  has 
disenchanted  them  with  life.  And  if  they  look  into 
it  they  will  see  that  what  has  gone  out  of  life  is 
simply  its  uncertainty.  They  have  solved  all  the 
problems.  They  have  opened  all  the  closets.  Once, 
when  they  got  up  in  the  morning,  they  wondered 
what  they  would  do  that  day;  they  thought  of  a 
thousand  things  that  might  happen  before  the  sun 
went  down.  Now,  they  know  just  what  will  hap- 
pen and  just  wlfiat  they  wilf  do  at  ev^y  hour  of  the 
day.  Once  each  New  Year's  day  was  a  pinnacle  on 
which  they  stood  and  looked  out  into  an  enticing 
splendor  of  vague  possibilities.  Now,  on  Ne\v; 
Year's  day  they  balance  their  books,  and,  presuming 
that  they  will  make  and  spend  about  the  same 
amount  of  money  in  the  next  year  as  in  the  last, 
settle  down  to  the  dull  content  of  a  certain  compe- 
tence. So  the  interest  of  life,  you  see,  depends 
upon  its  uncertain  futures.  It  will  not  do  to  solve 
the  problems  of  life,  unless  in  solving  them  you  open 
new  ones.  If  you  can  do  that,  then  you  can  keep 
the  interest  of  living.  If  you  can  open  a  new  pros- 
pect, with  all  the  splendor  of  vague  distance  about 
it,  yet  farther  on,  then  you  can  afford  to  go  over 
and  examine  in  detail  and  so  lose  the  romantic 
beauty  of  the  prospect  that  has  already  opened 
to  you. 

My  dear  friends,  all  this  seems  to  me  to  lead  to 


•' 


44      THE   POWER   OF   AN    UNCERTAIN   FUTURE 

very  serious  truth.  It  seems  to  me  to  show  that  life 
is  certain  to  become  dull  and  uninteresting  and 
weary  to  an  old  man,  to  every  man  as  he  grows  old, 
unless  some  future  beyond  life  opens  before  him, 
which  shall  be  to  his  old  age  all  that  the  yet  un- 
tried life  was  to  his  boyish  dreams.  The  boy 
dreamed  of  the  infiniteness  of  life,  and  there  was 
color  in  his  cheek  and  brightness  in  his  eye  and  a 
dewy  freshness  in  everything  he  said  and  did. 
That  is  all  gone  with  you,  perhaps  gone  so  far  back 
that  it  seems  as  remote  as  the  book  of  Genesis  when 
something  calls  it  back  to  you.  Is  there  any  pos- 
sible thing  that  can  replace  it  for  you?  Only  that 
opening  of  another  future,  with  new  uncertainties, 
which  has  turned  many  an  old  man  into  a  child 
again  as  he  stood  at  the  gateway  of  the  Everlasting 
Life.  When  this  life  is  exhausted,  when  its  crooked 
streets  have  all  been  trodden  to  the  end,  still  the 
interest  need  not  have  gone  out  of  living  if  only 
from  the  hilltop  of  experience  new  and  untrodden 
ways  can  open  themselves  before  us,  rolling  on  into 
the  mystery  of  eternity.  Then  one  may  die  with 
as  true  vitality,  as  eager  curiosity,  as  he  has  ever 
lived.  To  him  the  interest  of  life  is  still  preserved, 
as  alone  it  can  be  preserved,  by  the  power  of  an  un- 
certain future. 

There  are  some  touching  instances  of  this  feeling 
that  an  unknown  future  is  necessary  to  any  real 
pleasurable  interest  in  living.  Have  you  never 
heard  people  ask  one  another  whether  they  would 
be  willing  to  live  their  lives  over  again,  and  has  it 
not  sometimes  seemed  sad  to  see  how  almost  every- 


THE   POWER   OF  AN   UNCERTAIN   FUTURE       45 

body  said  "  No  " — almost  with  a  shudder,  as  if  the 
idea  was  almost  dreadful  to  him?  It  is  not  really 
that  men's  lives  have  been  so  unhappy — that  is  not 
why  they  would  dread  a  repetition  so.  There  have 
been  portions  of  their  lives  that  they  would  dread. 
There  are  places,  if  we  had  to  live  our  lives  over 
again  just  as  we  have  lived  them,  where  we  should 
set  our  teeth  in  grim  misery  as  we  came  in  sight  of 
the  old  blunder  or  the  terrible  catastrophe  which 
we  had  almost  forgotten ;  but  on  the  whole  there 
has  been  more  of  happiness  than  wretchedness  in 
all  our  lives.  But  the  main  reason  why  people 
shudder  when  you  ask  them  to  live  their  lives  again 
is  that  the  proposition  seems  to  them  so  utterly 
dreary.  A  life  with  no  surprises!  A  life  where 
you  knew  just  what  was  coming!  There  is  no  suc- 
cession of  terrible  blows  that  can  fall  upon  a  man 
that  could  begin  to  be  so  wretched  as  the  dulness 
of  such  a  life  would  be. 

Or  take  another  question :  You  ask  yourself, 
"  Would  I  have  lived  my  life,  if  I  had  known  at  the 
outset  just  what  it  was  to  be  ?  If  all  the  picture 
could  have  been  set  before  my  baby-brain,  would  my 
baby-hands  have  been  reached  out  to  welcome  it,  or 
would  they  have  thrust  it  impatiently  away?  "  I 
am  afraid  there  are  a  good  many  people  here  who, 
either  from  general  temper  or  from  some  temporary 
mood  that  they  are  in,  would  think  the  answer  to 
that  question  only  too  plain.  "  Never!  "  they  say. 
"  Never  would  I  have  lived  if  I  had  known  before- 
hand what  life  was!  "  And  yet  how  good  it  is  for 
these  people  that  they  have  lived  !    How  much  they 


46      THE    POWER   OF   AN    UNCERTAIN   FUTURE 

have  added  to  the  world's  stock.  How  much  hap- 
piness they  themselves  have  had  in  spite  of  all. 
They  have  been  tempted  on,  spared  the  worst  mis- 
ery of  anticipation,  and  never  wholly  deserted  by 
eagerness  and  hope,  through  the  power  of  an  un- 
certain future. 

My  dear  friends,  if  we  feel  this,  what  can  we  say  ? 
Is  there  one  of  us  that  dare  complain  of  God  be- 
cause He  keeps  our  futures  uncertain  ?  Does  it  not 
put  something  like  a  reason  underneath  these  end- 
less changes  by  which  our  plans  are  always  being 
broken  up  and  our  best  hopes  disappointed  ?  Is  it 
good  for  a  man  to  grow  gloomy  over  that  which  is 
the  only  source  of  interest,  hopefulness,  and  joy  in 
life? 

These  words  are  very  general ;  let  us  take  our 
text  somewhat  more  closely.  This  future  in  whose 
uncertainty  the  power  resides  is  spoken  of  as  the 
"  day  and  hour  wherein  the  Son  of  Man  cometh," — 
what  day  and  hour  is  meant  ?  The  Son  of  Man  is 
Christ  Himself.  His  coming  is  certainly  not  a  time 
when  He  draws  near  to  the  world,  for  He  is  in  the 
world  always.  It  must  be,  then,  some  time  or 
times  in  which  His  presence  becomes  manifest. 
Such  comings  there  are  several  of.  Men  discuss 
which  of  them  the  text  refers  to, — whether  to  the 
final  coming  for  judgment,  the  coming  to  every 
man  at  death,  or  the  coming  of  the  Spirit  at  a  man's 
conversion.  Let  us  not  try  to  settle  which  it  means, 
but  let  us  take  all  three.  It  is  good  for  us;  it 
cultivates  the  life  called  "  watchfulness  "  wilhin  us, 
not  to  know  when  Christ  is  coming  to  judge  the 


THE   POWER   OF   AN    UNCERTAIN   FUTURE       47 

world,  when  He  is  going  to  call  us  to  Himself  by- 
death,  when  He  is  coming  by  some  great  experience 
to  our  souls, — the  unknown  coming  for  judgment, 
the  unknown  time  of  death,  the  unknown  spiritual 
experience. 

I.  Take  first  the  coming  of  Christ  to  judge  this 
world.  Clearly  the  Bible  tells  of  some  such  time. 
Clearly  there  is  to  be  some  close  of  the  present  state 
of  things  and  some  new  dispensation,  to  begin  with 
some  peculiar  manifestation  of  Christ  to  men.  For- 
ever in  these  chapters  of  the  Bible  runs  the  proph- 
ecy of  the  opened  heaven  and  the  Son  of  man 
sitting  there  throned  among  His  angels.  "  He 
Cometh,  He  cometh  to  judge  the  world,  and  the 
people  with  equity."  But  yet  the  time  is  all  un- 
certain. "  Of  that  day  and  hour  knoweth  no  man." 
Perhaps  for  cycles  upon  cycles  yet  this  tangled  web 
of  forces  may  move  on  as  it  is  moving  now.  Per- 
haps already  the  great  wheels  are  trembling  on  the 
brink  of  stoppage.  Science  no  more  than  revelation 
ventures  to  guess  the  time ;  though  science,  just  like 
revelation,  catches  glimpses  of  the  coming y^^/. 

And  then,  when  we  ask  what  the  effect  of  this 
uncertain  future  on  the  world's  character  is,  we  are 
struck  first  of  all  by  this, — that  every  attempt  (and 
men  have  always  with  a  strange  persistency  kept 
making  their  attempts)  to  fix  what  God  has  left  un- 
certain has  done  harm  and  not  good  to  those  who 
made  their  guesses.  Certainly  such  attempts  have 
not  helped  the  religion  on  which  they  tried  to  fasten 
themselves.  The  Apostles  evidently,  after  Jesus 
had  gone  away,  believed  that  He  would  come  back 


48       THE   POWER   OF  AN   UNCERTAIN   FUTURE 

while  some  of  them  were  yet  alive,  but  that  was  not 
the  religion  that  inspired  the  zeal  of  Paul  and  John. 
Again,  as  the  thousand  years  after  Christ  approached 
toward  the  end  of  the  ninth  century,  you  know 
there  was  a  strange  and  widespread  impression  that 
when  the  thousand  years  were  over,  Jesus  would 
come.  The  people  waited.  From  many  a  house- 
top, as,  in  the  night,  one  century  gave  the  world 
over  to  the  next,  eyes  must  have  watched  the 
heavens  for  the  coming  Lord.  But  we  do  not  find 
that  such  a  confident  expectancy  made  the  world 
better.  Certainly  there  were  few  centuries  darker 
than  the  ninth,  the  century  of  wars  among  the 
nations,  and  gross  corruption  in  the  Church,  and 
ignorance  and  misery  in  private  life.  Again,  many 
of  us  are  old  enough  to  remember  how,  forty  years 
ago,  a  vast  number  of  our  people  believed  that  on  a 
certain  mentioned  day  the  world  would  end  and 
Christ  the  Judge  appear;  but  certainly,  among  the 
multitudes  who  looked  for  such  a  crisis,  no  one  ever 
heard  that  virtue  or  religion  came  to  any  wonderful 
development,  that  life  was  purer,  holier,  profounder, 
than  among  their  unbelieving  neighbors.  Nor  will 
the  most  enthusiastic  supporter  of  any  of  the  Mil- 
lenarian  theories  that  have  attempted  to  tell  what  is 
to  be  the  end  of  things  with  more  or  less  exact- 
ness, venture  to  say  that  his  theory  has  established 
for  itself  any  right  to  be  called  necessary  even  to  the 
highest  Christian  life. 

No  ;  history  shows  us  that  where  men  have  thought 
they  knew  the  end,  it  has  not  been  good  for  them. 
It  is  better  that  they  should  not  know.     And  cer- 


THE   POWER   OF  AN   UNCERTAIN   FUTURE       49 

tainly  we  can  see  why.    Can  we  not  understand  that 
the  best  culture  for  the  world  is  just  in  that  idea 
under  which  God  has  kept  the  world  living,— the 
idea  that  all  these  things  were  temporary,  and  yet 
an   entire  ignorance  as  to  the  length  of  their  en- 
durance ?     If  the  world  has  been  saved  from  entire 
sordidness,  if  its  heart  in  every  age  has  aspired  after 
loftier  things,  if  it  has  been  able  to  keep  in  its  re- 
membrance that  character  was  the  one  permanent 
thing,  if  thus  it  has  been  able  to  sacrifice  other  more 
manifest  things  to  the  invisible  majesty  of  character, 
the  reason  in  large  part  has  been  that  in  all  ages 
men  have  believed  that  the  time  would  come  when 
all  these  things  would  pass  away.     The  "  eternal 
hills"  were  not  eternal.     The  calm  heavens  were 
some  day  to  part  in  fire,  and  the  Judgment  Day  of 
the  world  to  come.     On  the   other  hand,   if   the 
world  of  men,  believing  in  the  coming  Judgment, 
has  still  worked  on,  toiled  on  the  substance  of  this 
perishable  earth  as  if  it  were  imperishable,  developed 
its  resources  and  so  made  it  a  fitter  instrument  for 
their  own  development,  it  has  been  because  no  day 
for  the  catastrophe  stared  them  in  the  face,  paralyz- 
ing their  healthy  activity,  and  blighting  their  cour- 
age.    To  live  in  one's  work,  and  yet  above  one's 
work,  is  what  one  needs.     To  be  a  servant  of  the 
earth,  and  yet  superior  to  the  earth,  where  it  has 
been  put  by  God,  is  the  lesson  that  the  human  soul 
always  has  been  learning;    and  that   lesson   it  has 
been  taught  by  the  power  of  the  world's  uncertain 
future. 

I  think  it  is  just  the  way  in  which  a  wise  parent 


50       THE   POWER    OF  AN   UNCERTAIN   FUTURE 

treats  his  child  during  the  preparatory  years  in 
which  he  Hves  still  as  a  child  under  the  parent's  roof. 
He  lets  him  know  that  that  home-life  is  tempo- 
rary. He  opens  windows  through  which  the  boy 
can  see  the  life  that  he  must  live  for  himself  out  in 
the  world,  when  this  first  dispensation  shall  be  over. 
And  at  the  same  time  he  draws  no  line,  fixes  no 
date,  makes  the  child-life  as  real  as  it  could  be  if  it 
were  to  last  forever.  So  God  trains  this  world  for 
the  next.  So  He  keeps  Time  full  of  solemn  watch- 
fulness for  Eternity.  So,  in  the  ears  of  a  humanity 
which  is  to  be  educated  by  the  ministry  of  perish- 
able things  for  those  which  are  imperishable,  He 
seems  to  be  always  uttering  those  unutterably 
solemn  words:  "  Seeing  that  all  these  things  shall 
be  dissolved,  what  manner  of  persons  ought  ye  to 
be  in  all  holy  conversation  and  godliness,  looking 
for  and  hasting  unto  the  coming  of  the  day  of  God?" 
2.  If  we  can  see  much  reason  why  the  world 
should  be  left  in  ignorance  about  the  time  of 
Christ's  coming  to  be  its  Judge,  we  can  understand 
even  more  of  how  good  it  is  for  every  man  not  to 
know  just  when  the  word  of  the  Lord  will  come  to 
him,  as  it  does  come  to  every  man,  to  call  him  out 
of  this  state  of  being  to  a  higher.  I  suppose  that 
we  have  all  thought,  sometimes,  what  differences  it 
would  make  in  all  our  life  if  we  all  knew  from  the 
beginning  just  when  we  were  to  be  called  to  die. 
Certainly  we  do  not  know,  men  do  not  know  them- 
selves, how  much  the  certainty  that  they  must  die 
some  time  influences  and  controls  them.  It  is  not 
often  on  their  lips.    It  is  not  often  consciously  upon 


THE  POWER  OF  AN  UNCERTAIN  FUTURE   5 1 

their  hearts.  But  there  is  something  in  the  life  ot 
every  man  that  would  be  changed  in  a  moment  if  he 
suddenly  were  made  aware  that  he  were  to  stay 
here  upon  the  earth  forever.  We  say  sometimes 
that  men  live  here  just  as  if  they  never  were  to  die; 
we  think  that  all  this  hurrying  crowd  upon  the  street 
has  utterly  forgotten  death  and  hurries  on  as  if  it 
were  to  pour  up  and  down  these  thronged  avenues 
forever;  but  it  is  not  so.  Every  man  has  in  his  na- 
ture the  influence  of  the  fact  that  he  always  knows, 
though  it  is  not  always  consciously  before  his  mind. 
The  traveller  in  the  city  is  always  different  from  the 
citizen,  though  he  has  no  time  fixed  for  his  depar- 
ture, and  even  prolongs  his  visit  to  many  years.  So 
the  pilgrim-and-stranger  feeling  is  somewhere  in  all 
of  us.  It  differs  in  us  all.  It  is  an  awful  sense  of 
brooding  mystery  in  some,  a  tireless  and  hurried 
energy  in  others,  and  in  almost  all  it  is  a  certain 
tenderness  and  dearness  gathering  about  the  earth 
which  we  are  certainly  some  day  to  leave.  But  just 
consider  what  the  consequences  would  be  if  this 
vague  certainty  were  brought  down  and  made  defi- 
nite, and  each  man  knew  from  the  beginning  of  his 
course  just  when  to  him  would  come  the  summons 
that  no  man  can  disobey. 

The  first  thing  that  I  think  of  is  the  great  de- 
crease of  physical  energy  and  work  that  it  would 
probably  make  in  the  world  if  every  man  knew  just 
when  he  was  to  die.  One  of  the  strongest  springs 
of  action  among  men  is  the  desire  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  their  life, — perhaps  it  is  the  strongest  spring 
of  action.   It  is  this,  the  desire  to  prolong  their  life. 


52   THE  POWER  OF  AN  UNCERTAIN  FUTURE 

that  has  in  large  part  broken  up  the  forests  and 
opened  the  mines  and  bridged  the  rivers  and  built 
the  cities.  This,  in  large  part,  is  what  one  hears 
through  all  the  clatter  of  the  world's  machineries  and 
the  hoarse  roar  of  business, — the  personal  desire  for 
life.  It  is  the  clangor  of  the  hammers  with  which 
men  are  building  walls  between  themselves  and 
death.  This,  too,  is  at  the  root  of  almost  all  our 
institutions:  society,  government, — they  are  all  to 
secure  men  in  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness ;  and  of  these  great  ambitions  life  stands  first 
and  lies  deepest  of  all. 

And,  then,  consider  how,  in  the  uncertainty  as  to 
the  time  of  death,  every  man's  labor  lasts  almost — 
some  men's  last  quite — up  to  the  time  of  death. 
Almost  or  quite  up  to  the  very  last  they  still  con- 
tribute to  the  wealth  and  progress  of  the  world.  No 
sight  of  the  approaching  end  unmans  their  courage 
and  makes  them  drop  their  tools  before  the  time. 
Think,  if  you  please,  how  many  men,  if  they  knew 
that  their  dying  day  was  only  one  year  off,  would 
feel  no  spirit  and  no  call  to  work  during  that  year, 
the  hope  of  self-preservation  being  definitely  taken 
from  them.  And,  then,  think  how  much  the  world 
would  have  been  robbed  of,  if  all  the  labor  that  her 
millions  of  great  ^nd  little  workers  have  done  within 
a  year  of  the  time  when  they  were  called  away  were 
taken  out  of  the  aggregate;  and  we  can  see  already 
some  reason  why  the  cloud  is  not  lifted,  and  men 
walk  on,  working  and  living  and  hoping,  up  to  the 
very  door  of  the  other  life. 

And  when  I  think  again,  not  of  what  the  world 


THE  POWER  OF  AN  UNCERTAIN  FUTURE   53 

would  lose,  but  of  what  the  character  and  culture  of 
the  men  themselves  would  lose,  if  the  day  when 
they  were  to  leave  the  earth  were  known  to  them 
from  the  day  when  they  first  entered  on  it,  then  it 
seems  clearer  still.  You  train  your  little  child  for 
all  the  duties  of  his  manhood.  From  his  very  cradle 
the  thought  of  "  when  he  is  a  man  "  is  before  you 
as  your  inspiration  and  your  guide.  God  takes  your 
child,  still  in  his  childhood,  to  the  higher  education 
of  the  perfect  world.  The  training  for  this  life  that 
you  gave  him,  if  it  was  really  sound  and  true  and 
godly,  was  the  best  training  that  he  could  have 
taken  to  the  Eternal  School;  but  could  you  have 
given  it  to  him  if  you  had  known  that  he  was  to  die 
so  young,  that  he  was  never  to  mingle  among  men 
in  all  the  ministries  and  competitions  of  the  world  ? 
Or,  again,  could  a  young  man  train  himself  to  pru- 
dence, self-constraint,  truth,  and  all  the  qualities 
that  make  the  best  successes  of  men's  middle-age, 
if  he  knew  from  the  start  that  just  upon  the  thres- 
hold of  that  middle-age  the  angel  would  touch  him 
and  he  must  go  away?  That  eager  student, — would 
he  have  studied  so  if  he  had  always  known  that  his 
knowledge  would  never  be  used  here,  that  with  its 
new  richness  all  about  him  he  was  to  lie  down  and 
die  ?  And  then  the  happiness  that  comes  to  hearts 
that  look  forward  into  years  of  friendship, — could  it 
have  flowed  in  so  abundantly  and  cloudlessly  upon 
the  soul  if  that  soul  had  foreseen  the  coming  separa- 
tion ?  Still,  indeed,  there  would  be  left  the  highest 
values  of  knowledge  and  the  highest  sources  of 
happiness ;  still  the  student  might  have  known  that 


54       THE   POWER   OF   AN    UNCERTAIN   FUTURE 

he  could  learn  nothing  that  was  really. true,  foi 
which  he  would  not  be  the  richer  in  whatever  world 
he  lived;  still  the  friend  might  twine  his  friendship 
all  the  closer  that  it  might  be  strong  enough  not  to 
break  even  with  the  strain  that  carried  it  beyond 
the  grave;  but  all  the  inferior  sources 'of  culture 
and  happiness,  which,  though  inferior,  are  pure,  on 
which  we  all  so  much  depend,  must  surely  suffer  a 
blight.  Surely  it  is  a  good,  kind  God,  a  blessed 
Father,  who  lets  us  know  that  He  is  coming,  but 
does  not  tell  us  when.  We  are  like  children  off  at 
school,  to  whom  the  father  sends  word  that  he  will 
bring  them  home,  that  so  they  may  study  all  the 
harder  and  be  ready,  but  does  not  fix  the  day  lest 
they  should  drop  the  books  altogether  and  merely 
stand  looking  for  him  out  of  the  window,  wasting 
their  time.  God  will  bring  the  shortness  of  life 
home  to  all  of  us  so  as  to  make  us  say,  "  We  will 
work  the  harder,"  but  He  will  not  let  it  weigh  upon 
any  of  us  so  as  to  set  us  thinking,  "  It  is  not  worth 
while  to  work." 

And  we  must  think  not  merely  of  what  such  a 
certainty  about  the  time  of  our  death  would  take 
away  from  us,  but  also  of  what  it  would  bring  into 
our  lives.  It  would  set  us  all  to  preparing  for  death 
in  a  narrow  and  special  sense.  It  is  not  good  for  a 
man  to  devote  himself  to  preparation  for  dying.  It 
is  preparation  for  living  that  you  need.  When,  in 
mediaeval  times,  men,  feeling  that  death  was  near 
them,  used  to  give  up  their  work,  lay  down  their 
arms,  and,  like  the  cloistered  emperor,  put  on  the 
cowl  and  go  and  live  in  monasteries, — nay,  build 


THE    POWER    OF   AN    UNCERTAIN   FUTURE       55 

their  coffins  and  keep  their  epitaphs  written  on  their 
cell-walls, — we  know  that  it  was  a  mere  makeshift 
It  was  better  perhaps  than  nothing,  but  it  was  an 
attempt  to  crowd  into  a  year  or  two  what  a  whole 
lifetime  should  have  done,  to  force  by  unnatural 
means  that  intimacy  with  the  God  to  whom  they 
were  to  go  which  should  have  been  healthily  gath- 
ered out  of  the  daily  experiences  of  a  long,  devout, 
obedient  life.  You  cannot  so  make  the  perfect 
friendship  any  more  than  you  can  make  the  lower 
friendship  so.  To  take  away  the  uncertainty  about 
the  time  of  death  would  have  a  tendency  (which  the 
best  men  would  resist,  but  to  which  multitudes  of 
men  would  yield)  to  give  the  bulk  of  life  up  to  in- 
difference and  recklessness  and  crowd  the  last  few 
months  or  days  with  an  artificial  religiousness  that 
would  have  little  power  to  prepare  the  soul  for  its 
great  change.  The  only  real  way  to  "  Prepare  to 
meet  thy  God  "  is  to  live  with  thy  God  so  that  to 
meet  Him  shall  be  nothing  strange. 

So,  surely,  it  is  better  for  us  as  God  has  appointed 
it.  So,  surely,  the  picture  of  a  faithful  man,  by 
every  duty  of  his  life  preparing  himself  for  the  next 
duty,  and  so  at  last  finding  that  living  has  prepared 
him  for  dying,  and  laying  his  life  back  into  the 
hands  of  a  Father  in  whose  strength  he  has  lived  it 
all, — this  is  the  highest  illustration  of  the  power  of 
an  uncertain  future  to  influence  and  ripen  and  pre- 
pare us  for  more  than  we  foresee. 

3.  And  now,  but  little  time  remains  for  me  to 
speak  of  the  last  of  the  three  comings  of  the  Son  of 
Man.    Christ  comes  to  all  last  for  judgment,  Christ 


56     THE   POWER   OF  AN   UNCERTAIN   FUTURE 

comes  to  each  of  us  at  death,  but  Christ  comes  also 
in  the  hour  of  conversion,  when  He  claims  a  man 
for  His  servant  and  bids  him  take  up  his  cross  and 
follow  Him.  In  the  religion  of  our  day,  conversion 
is  made  a  less  prominent  and  separate  moment  in  a 
man's  life  than  it  used  to  be  considered  in  the  re- 
ligion of  other  days.  If  this  change  means  that  all 
the  life  is  recognized  as  being  more  full  of  God,  and 
so  lifted  up  nearer  to  the  level  of  the  conversion- 
hour,  then  it  is  well;  but  if  it  means  that  the 
supernatural  power  of  the  conversion  itself  is  being 
disallowed,  and  so  the  whole  life  brought  down  to 
the  level  of  every-day  worldliness,  then  it  is  bad. 
All  Christian  experience  bears  witness  that  there 
are  times  when  that  Saviour  who  is  always  present 
and  always  seeking  us  makes  Himself  peculiarly 
manifest  to  our  souls  and  asks  us  to  be  His.  It  may 
be  in  connection  with  some  great  outward  change 
that  comes  to  us;  or  it  may  be  something  wholly  of 
the  inner  life,  unseen,  unheard  by  any  one  beside 
ourselves;  but  do  you  not  know  that  such  times 
surely  come  ?  I  speak  to  any  servant  of  the  Saviour 
here:  Were  there  not  days,  perhaps  years,  when 
you  went  on  in  your  own  way,  Christ  by  you  al- 
ways but  you  not  seeing  Him,  Christ  speaking  to 
you  and  you  not  hearing  Him  ?  But  at  last  there 
came  a  time  when  He  looked  on  you  with  a  new 
face  and  you  did  see  Him;  when  He  spoke  to  you 
with  a  new  voice  and  you  did  hear  Him!  That  is 
the  time — be  it  a  moment  or  a  day  or  a  year — of  a 
man's  conversion, — the  beginning  of  a  new  life. 
And  now,  can  you  not  see  that  it  makes  a  great 


THE   POWER   OF  AN    UNCERTAIN   FUTURE       57 

difference  whether  that  supreme  meeting  of  your 
soul  and  God,  which  must  come  and  which  is 
fraught  with  such  stupendous  consequences,  is  to 
come  at  some  fixed  time,  when  you  have  reached 
some  special  age,  when  you  are  ready  for  some 
special  study;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  it 
may  come  at  any  moment — at  any  momejit  between 
the  solemn  moment  when  you  first  find  that  you 
have  a  soul  and  that  other  solemn  moment  when 
you  give  your  soul  up  to  your  Master  and  your 
Judge  ?  If  the  first,  then  you  may  wait,  wait  unex- 
pectantly  until  you  hear  Him  coming.  If  the  other, 
then  any  time  in  the  ever-turning  journey  of  life 
may  bring  you  into  sight  of  Him ;  any  sound  close 
by  your  side  may  be  His  footstep.  This  next  mo- 
ment may  be  His  moment  to  bless  your  soul.  Nay, 
this  moment,  now,  may  be  His  time,  and  you  may 
be  letting  it  pass  just  because  you  are  not  knowing 
that  it  may  be  any  moment,  and  so  are  not  listening 
every  moment  for  the  slightest  indication  of  His 
coming. 

More  and  more  the  law  of  the  Christian  life  seems 
to  me  to  be  this — that  Christ  the  Saviour  comes  to 
every  man,  and  that  they  that  are  watching  for  Him 
and  expecting  Him  know  Him  when  He  comes,  and 
enter  with  Him  into  some  higher  life.  "  They  that 
were  ready  went  in  with  Him  to  the  marriage"; 
these  words  of  the  old  parable  tell  the  whole  story. 
Ah,  yes,  as  we  look  back  over  our  life,  how  sudden 
always  have  been  the  comings  of  the  Son  of  Man ! 
We  looked  for  Him  off  in  some  distance,  and  sud- 
denly His  voice  spoke  to  us  close  at  our  side.  Again 


58   THE  POWER  OF  AN  UNCERTAIN  FUTURE 

we  said  to  ourselves  in  some  proud  moment  of  seL' 
exaltation,  "  Now  He  must  be  near  me;  now  He 
will  speak  to  me,"  but  that  proud,  selfish  moment 
has  gone  by,  utterly  cold  and  dead,  without  a  sight 
or  sound  of  Christ;  and  then,  when  we  had  just 
passed  down  off  from  the  mountain  where  we  hoped 
for  so  much,  into  a  valley  of  humility  where  we  ex- 
pected nothing, — then  everything  around  us  has 
been  radiant  with  His  presence,  and  He  has  spoken 
to  us  words  of  wisdom  and  a  Brother's  tenderest 
love.  We  have  expected  Him,  and  He  has  not 
come;  we  have  forgotten  Him,  and  He  has  been 
with  us.  The  deepest  experiences  of  our  life  have 
taken  us  unawares.  In  such  an  hour  as  we  thought 
not  the  Son  of  Man  has  come. 

Every  man  knows  this  of  his  life,  and  so  what  is 
the  law  of  life  that  it  ought  to  make  for  us  ?  It 
is  not  hard  to  see.  It  must  be  always  useless  to  pre- 
pare oneself  against  this  or  that  moment,  to  make 
up  conditions  for  what  we  fancy  are  to  be  the  most 
critical  times  of  life.  That  is  spasmodic  and  unreal. 
But  to  be  so  possessed  with  the  conviction  that  God 
is  around  us  always,  and  may  show  Himself  to  us  in 
any  commonest  moment,  that  we  are  always  alert 
and  ready  to  receive  Him, — that  is  the  true  condi- 
tion of  the  soul.  Sometimes  from  mere  expectancy 
you  may  be  deceived;  sometimes  it  may  seem  as  if 
God  spoke  to  you  when  it  is  only  your  own  longing 
that  He  may  speak  that  makes  you  think  it  is  His 
voice;  but  I  think  it  is  better  to  be  mistaken  so  a 
hundred  times  than  once  not  to  be  ready,  and  so 
say,  "  Oh,    it  is   nothing!"  when    He   really   does 


THE  POWER   OF  AN   UNCERTAIN   FUTURE       59 

speak.  It  is  better,  after  all,  to  be  so  superstitious 
that  we  find  God  where  He  is  not,  than  to  be  so 
sceptical  that  we  will  not  find  Him  where  He  is. 

Have  we  not,  then,  come  at  the  end  to  something 
like  a  clear  tangible  notion  of  what  the  watching  is 
to  which  the  Saviour  urged  His  disciples  long  ago, 
and  to  which  He  still  urges  us  ?  It  is  not  an  act, 
not  a  habit,  but  a  character.  It  is  a  constant  alert- 
ness of  soul  which,  believing  that  Christ  does  come 
near  to  people,  is  determined  that  He  shall  not 
come  near  us  and  escape  us  because  we  are  asleep. 
It  has  no  plan  for  the  future,  and  so  is  always  ready 
to  catch  any  intimation  of  His  plan.  It  is  pro- 
foundly conscious  that  the  world  is  full  of  Him,  and 
so  is  ready  to  hear  His  voice  from  any  unexpected 
corner.  It  believes,  just  as  those  disciples  believed, 
that  Jesus  never  died  for  men  and  left  them  to  their 
fate,  but  that  He  will  certainly  come  back  to  claim 
the  souls  He  died  for.  It  lives  in  prayer  and  work, 
both  of  them  keeping  it  open  and  dependent;  and 
by  and  by  He  comes,  and  they,  being  ready,  enter 
in  with  Him  to  His  home  and  their  home  in 
God. 

One  would  like  to  speak  to  all  these  young  people 
very  earnestly.  Do  not  think  that  the  life  you  are 
beginning  has  shown  you  yet  all  its  mystery.  Do 
not  think  you  have  got  to  the  height  or  the  depth 
of  it  when  you  have  just  found  it  pleasant  and 
sunny.  It  is  more  solemn  and  profound  than  that. 
It  will  bring  vast  experiences.  To  you,  more  won- 
derful by  far  than  you  know  yourself,  and  capable 
of  far  greater  intercourses  than  you  have  imagined, 


60      THE   POWER   OF   AN   UNCERTAIN   FUTURE 

the  Son  of  Man  will  certainly  come.  Do  not  manu- 
facture experiences.  Do  not  pay  too  much  regard 
to  those  who  shout  to  you,  "  Lo,  here  is  Christ!  " 
or,  "  Lo,  He  is  there !  "  but  be  so  expectant  of  Him 
always,  keep  so  in  the  pure  way  of  His  command- 
ments, pray  so  earnestly  for  Him  to  come,  that 
when  He  does  come  you  will  know  it;  when  He 
calls  you,  you  will  answer;  when  He  says,  **  Come 
to  me,"  you  will  leave  all  and  follow  Him.  Let 
your  life  be  that,  and  then  one  hardly  dares  to  say 
which  is  the  holier,  the  time  here  while  you  are 
watching  for  His  coming,  or  the  Eternity  hereafter 
when  He  shall  have  fully  come  and  received  you  to 
Himself.  May  God  grant  you  first  the  one  and 
then  the  other! 


IV. 

THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE. 

"  For  we  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against  princi- 
palities, against  powers,  against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this 
world,  against  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places." — Ephesians  vi. 
12. 

In  this  world  wherever  there  is  life  there  is  strug- 
gle. We  grow  so  used  to  it  as  a  perpetual  accom- 
paniment of  life  that  we  do  not  always  give  it  its 
true  name.  We  give  the  name  only  to  some  forms 
of  wrestling  with  difficulty,  and  think  that  other 
lives  are  easy  and  struggleless.  But  always  when 
we  come  to  know  these  other  lives  and  to  examine 
them  with  any  kind  of  care,  we  find  that  they  too 
are  engaged  in  strife,  that  the  difference  is  merely 
one  of  form.  Sometimes  one  strong  man's  struggle 
shakes  the  world  and  makes  the  nations  look. 
Sometimes  it  wears  the  man's  soul  out  in  silence, 
and  cannot  be  told,  however  the  struggler  longs  and 
tries  to  tell  it  to  his  dearest  friend.  Sometimes  it 
wiites  itself  in  haggard  lines  upon  the  forehead  and 
the  cheek;  sometimes  the  darker  the  strife  that 
rages  behind,  so  much  the  brighter  is  the  smile  upon 
the  face.  Sometimes  the  struggle  is  the  joy  of  the 
life,  making  it  like  a  perpetual  field  of  trumpets  and 

6i 


62  THE   SPIRITUAL  STRUGGLE 

banners  and  marching  hosts;  sometimes  it  is  all  the 
blackness  of  darkness,  as  if  a  man  wrestled  day  and 
night  for  years  in  a  dark  dungeon  underground 
with  an  enemy  whom  he  never  saw  and  only  came 
to  know  by  the  untiring  persistency  of  his  strength 
and  cunning.  Sometimes  it  is  the  saint  struggling 
with  the  last  temptation  that  seems  to  keep  him 
from  perfect  peace;  sometimes  it  is  the  poor  wretch 
struggling  with  what  seems  to  be  the  last  effort  of 
the  Spirit  of  Goodness  to  rescue  him  from  perfect 
satisfaction  and  content  in  sin ; — whatever,  however, 
it  may  be,  in  this  world  there  is  struggle  wherever 
there  is  life.  The  only  way  in  which  some  souls 
seem  to  escape  from  struggle  is  by  lowering  the 
tone  of  life,  by  making  themselves  half-dead. 

No  man  in  this  world  need  ever  seek  after  strug- 
gle. Let  him  seek  after  life,  and  the  struggle  will 
come,  healthily  and  naturally,  by  the  law  of  the 
world  we  live  in.  When  a  young  man  or  young 
woman,  with  a  Byronic  impulse,  seeks  directly  for 
struggle,  tries  to  reproduce  in  one  life  those  signs 
which  have  told  of  the  deep  movement  which  has 
stirred  some  other  life,  the  result  is  only  an  artificial 
and  unpleasant  affectation;  the  contortions  do  not 
move  our  sympathy,  but  our  disgust.  No,  do  not 
try  to  struggle,  but  try  to  live,  and  the  struggle  will 
open  before  you  surely.  Do  not  seek  it,  and  do  not 
shun  it,  but  let  the  increase  of  life  deepen  as  it  will 
the  seriousness  and  solemnity  of  your  contact  with 
those  things  which  your  growing  life  will  have  to 
touch.  It  is  one  of  those  things  which  puts  heaven 
past,  outside  of,  our  comprehension  that  there  there 


THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE  63 

*s  to  be  the  fulness  of  life,  without  struggle,  in  un- 
hindered ease  and  peace.  We  cannot  understand 
that  now,  for  in  this  world  wherever  there  is  life 
there  is  struggle. 

And  then,  another  thought  which  follows  immedi- 
ately upon  this,  and  which  is  also  abundantly  con- 
firmed  by  the  experience  of  men,  is  that  with  every 
change  in  the  character  of  life  there  will  come  also 
a  change  in  the  character  of  the  struggle  that  goes 
with  it.  As  men  come  to  a  new  and  higher  life,  so 
will  they  find  themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  new  and 
higher  struggle.  It  is  as  when  a  soldier  storms  a 
citadel:  with  each  new  chamber  into  which  he 
presses  as  he  comes  nearer  to  the  central  room 
which  is  the  key  and  core  of  all,  where  the  choicest 
treasures  are  guarded,  he  meets  always  a  more  and 
more  watchful  and  formidable  enemy.  Only  beside 
the  very  treasure,  only  when  his  hand  is  laid  upon 
the  prize  which  he  has  come  through  all  the  perils 
thus  far  to  seek,  does  he  meet  the  strongest  enemy 
of  all,  the  stoutest  heart  and  strongest  arm  that  the 
whole  citadel  can  furnish. 

The  illustrations  of  this  are  endless.  A  man  has 
been  trying  to  be  rich,  and  he  has  met  the  enemies 
and  hindrances  that  beset  that  search, — the  fickle- 
ness of  the  market,  the  competition  of  his  brethren, 
his  own  temptations  to  indolence  or  to  extrava- 
gance. But  by  and  by,  perhaps,  the  man  is  rich, 
and  then  he  presses  forward  into 'an  inner  chamber 
of  ambition.  He  aspires  to  be  wise.  He  wants  to 
learn.  With  that  wish  opens  a  new  life,  and  with 
the  new  life  opens  a  new  struggle.     In  his  newly 


64  THE   SPIRITUAL  STRUGGLE 

built  study  he  fights  a  fight  which  his  store  could 
never  give  him, — no  longer  now  against  the  chances 
of  the  market  and  the  opposition  of  the  street,  but 
against  prejudice,  against  bigotry,  against  intellec- 
tual selfishness,  against  pride,  against  all  in  himself 
and  other  men  that  dislikes  and  dreads  the  truth; 
against  all  this  he  fights  the  moment  that  he  be- 
comes a  scholar.  A  man  who  has  been  selfish  learns 
to  love.  Instantly  he  is  struggling  not  merely  for 
his  own  self-respect  which  it  was  so  easy  to  con- 
ciliate, but  for  the  respect  and  confidence  of  his 
beloved,  which  can  be  won  only  by  magnanimous 
devotion.  A  man  mounts  to  the  thought  of  charity, 
and  he  is  wrestling  with  other  men's  woes  and  sor- 
rows, no  longer  only  with  his  own. 

Or  take  St.  Paul.  Think  over  his  life.  Think 
how,  as  he  opened  one  door  after  another  into  the 
successive  chambers  of  his  long  career,  he  always 
met  a  new  fight  in  each  of  them,  and  his  growing 
life  was  marked  and  recognized  by  his  growing 
struggles.  His  life  began  with  that  mere  struggle 
for  a  place  among  the  physical  things  of  the  physi- 
cal earth,  which  all  human  lives  must  encounter  first 
— the  struggle  for  existence, — by  success  in  which  he 
made  himself  a  standing-ground  for  all  his  other 
fightings.  Then,  as  a  scholar  of  Gamaliel,  came 
his  fight  with  ignorance  and  with  all  the  enemies  of 
the  ideas  that  ruled  in  that  master's  school.  Then, 
to  the  fiery  young  Pharisee,  riding  to  Damascus, 
persecuting  the  upstart  Christians,  there  came  the 
new  life  of  national  enthusiasm,  and  with  it  the  new 
struggle  against  what  he  thought  his  nation's  ene- 


THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE  65 

mies.     Each  of  these  h'ves,  with  its  new  struggle, 
was  nobler  than  the  one  before  it. 

But  then  this  Paul  became  a  Christian.  To  the 
spiritual  truth  of  a  spiritual  Master  he  gave  up  his 
soul.  The  life  hid  in  an  unseen  Christ  opened  be- 
fore him.  He  was  drawn  into  it  as  if  by  a  great,  un- 
seen arm  put  out  around  him.  And  once  in  there, 
once  living  not  for  himself  but  for  his  Lord,  the 
new  life  thoroughly  begun,  behold  the  struggle  was 
all  new!  No  longer  now  with  disease  and  physical 
dangers,  no  longer  now  with  the  scholars  of  other 
schools  who  fought  wordy  battles  with  the  young 
Gamalielites,  no  longer  now  with  seditious  followers 
of  One  who  seemed  a  traitor  to  his  nation  and  his 
church,  but  now  with  all  the  spiritual  enemies  of  his 
Spiritual  Lord, — with  sin,  with  his  own  selfishness, 
with  lust,  with  falseness,  with  unspirituality.  The 
whole  battle  is  drawn  inward.  On  another  field, 
with  other  weapons,  inspired  by  other  hopes,  led  by 
another  watchword,  now  it  rages.  Hear  him  tell  of 
it  himself.  "  We  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and 
blood,  but  against  principalities,  against  powers, 
against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world, 
against  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places." 

This  was  the  way  in  which  St.  Paul  came  up  to 
this  great  utterance  of  my  text.  The  spiritual  life 
had  brought  the  spiritual  battle.  We  cannot  read 
the  words  carefully,  indeed,  without  remembering 
how  much  there  was  in  Paul's  mind  which  has 
grown  unfamiliar  to  these  modern  minds  of  ours. 
Paul  was  a  Jew.  To  the  Jews  the  whole  idea  of  be- 
ings outside  of  our  race,  who  were   in   continual 


66  THE    SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE 

contact  with  and  influence  upon  our  race,  was  one  in 
which  they  had  been  bred  and  in  which  the  whole 
history  of  their  nation  had  been  lived.  They  be- 
lieved in  angels,  and  almost  looked  for  their  daily 
presence  and  help.  They  believed  in  spirits  of  evil, 
and  traced  the  evil  works  which  they  saw  in  the 
world  to  unseen  spiritual  hands.  Man's  sin  consis- 
ted not  siinply  in  yielding  to  the  persuasions  of  his 
own  worse  self,  but  in  giving  way  to  the  tempta- 
tions of  those  external  powers  of  wickedness  of 
which  the  air  was  full.  When  St.  Paul,  then,  de- 
scribes his  battle,  it  is  of  these  powers  that  he  is 
thinking.  The  "  principalities  and  powers,"  the 
"  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world,"  the  "  spiritual 
wickedness  in  high  places,"  that  is,  in  the  upper  re- 
gions of  the  sky, — all  these  are  not  figures  of  speech 
with  him ;  they  are  real  beings,  true  objective  ene- 
mies of  the  human  soul. 

It  is  hard  for  us  to  realize  how  far  we  have  depar- 
ted from  that  whole  conception.  Man's  look  then 
was  turned  outward,  and  all  the  universe  was  con- 
ceived as  fighting  for  the  possession  of  his  soul. 
Man's  look  now  is  turned  inward,  and  his  soul  is 
fighting  with  itself,  tossing  in  the  fermentation  of 
its  own  internal  passions,  its  own  enemy  or  its  own 
saviour.  They  are  different  views  of  human  life,  the 
objective  and  the  subjective  view.  Both  views  are 
true,  but  they  give  us  different  sides  of  truth. 
Probably  no  century  has  been  so  one-sided  as  ours 
in  its  intense  acceptance  of  one  aspect  of  life  and  its 
almost  complete  rejection  of  the  other.  No  century 
has  had  its  eye  so  earnestly  fixed  upon  man's  strug- 


THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE  6^ 

gle  with  himself.  No  century  has  made  so  little  of 
the  thought  of  any  evil  spirits  outside  of  us,  trying 
to  harm  our  souls.  And  we  are  all  men  of  our  cen- 
tury, and  must  look  on  truth  from  the  side  from 
which  our  time  regards  it,  but  yet  we  never  ought 
to  entirely  forget  its  other  sides,  from  which  it  has 
most  powerfully  appealed  to  other  times.  I  am 
willing  enough  to  talk  after  our  modern  way,  to 
represent  the  struggle  of  man  as  a  struggle  with 
himself;  but  all  the  time  I  want  to  remember  with 
St.  Paul  and  all  the  great  objective  thinkers  and  be- 
lievers, that  the  universe  is  large,  that  it  is  full  of 
beings  who  must  send  forth  influence  upon  each 
other,  and  so  that,  while  the  spiritual  enemy  with 
which  I  fight  to-day  meets  me  immediately  as  a  lust 
of  my  own  soul,  it  has  its  sources  and  connections 
farther  back  in  the  world  of  spiritual  being  which 
stretches  far,  far  away  past  my  sight,  but  not  too 
far  away  to  send  forth  forces  from  its  farthest 
depths  which  shall  touch  and  tell  upon  my  life. 

We  want  to  bear  this  in  mind,  and  see  that  Paul's 
way  of  feeling  and  our  modern  way  are  really  one. 
The  underlying  idea  is  the  same, — that  he  who  tries 
to  live  a  holy  life  is  beset  by  a  new  kind  of  enemy 
and  lives  in  the  midst  of  fears  that  he  never  felt  be- 
fore. Paul  sees  those  enemies  gathering  out  of  the 
realms  of  space.  Range  beyond  range,  world  be- 
yond world,  back  into  the  most  mysterious  distance 
of  the  universe,  he  sees  their  hostile  faces  bent  upon 
him,  he  feels  their  far-sent  breath  upon  his  cheek. 
We  know  our  enemies,  as  they  gather  from  the 
depths  of  our  own  nature,  as  they  attack  us  from 


68  THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE 

the  newly  stirred  regions  of  our  own  tumultuous 
selves;  but  in  both  cases  the  meaning  is  the  same; 
we  have  begun  to  live  a  new  life  and  we  have 
found  it  beset  by  new  enemies  and  fears. 

Indeed,  this  was  what  Jesus  said  to  His  disciples 
when  He  invited  them  to  a  higher  life.  He  de- 
scribed and  characterized  the  new  life  by  its  new 
fear:  "  Fear  not  them  that  kill  the  body,  and  after 
that  have  no  more  that  they  can  do,  but  fear  Him 
who  hath  power  to  destroy  the  soul  in  hell.  Yea, 
I  say  unto  you,  fear  Him."  These  words  really 
agree  with  and  fulfil  the  words  of  Paul.  Paul  says 
that  as  a  man  grows  nobler  he  will  wrestle  not  with 
men,  but  with  devils;  Jesus  says  that  as  a  man 
grows  nobler  he  will  fear  not  men,  but  God.  They 
really  amount  to  the  same  thing,  which  is,  that  as  a 
man  grows  nobler  he  will  fight  and  fear  not  for  the 
body,  but  for  the  soul,  will  fight  the  soul's  enemies 
and  fear  the  soul's  Lord, — just  as  when  a  soldier  is 
raised  to  the  command  of  a  great  army,  he  is  filled 
at  once  with  a  new  fear  of  the  enemy  that  is  set 
against  him,  and  a  new  fear  of  the  king  who  has 
raised  him  to  such  responsibility. 

Let  us  look  then  at  this  struggle  of  the  higher 
life,  the  new  battle  of  life  which  a  man  begins  when 
he  for  the  first  time  undertakes  to  do  battle  against 
his  sins.  It  is  a  profoundly  solemn  moment.  The 
man  who  heretofore  has  tried  to  do  what  the  world 
called  right,  because  he  thought  that  it  was  decent 
or  because  it  would  make  the  world  think  better  of 
him,  gets  a  new  idea.  The  right  is  right  because  it 
saves   the   soul.     The  wrong  is  wrong   because  it 


THE   SPIRITUAL  STRUGGLE  69 

Spoils  the  soul.  The  soul,  the  real  spiritual  self,  the 
soul  capable  of  a  celestial  whiteness,  in  danger  of 
perpetual  ineradicable  stain,  the  soul  whose  purity 
is  precious  and  delicate  beyond  anything  on  earth, 
— that  soul  becomes  the  touchstone  and  test  of 
everything.  Oh,  my  friends,  with  that  new  passion 
in  the  soul  everything  around  you  changes;  expedi- 
ency, fame,  pleasure, — every  other  wish, — is  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  desire  to  keep  that  soul  pure.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  Christ  called  it  a  new  life  to  which 
men  could  come  only  by  a  new  birth?  Let  us  see 
what  some  of  its  characteristics  are. 

And,  first  of  all,  there  is  a  certain  strange  and 
very  delightful  sense  of  dignity  and  exaltation 
which  runs  along  with  and  continually  blends  into 
the  fear  with  which  the  new  life  is  beset.  I  think 
that  this  is  always  so.  That  which  makes  responsi- 
bility tolerable,  that  which  supports  a  soul  when 
any  higher  duty  surrounds  it  with  more  pressing 
and  dangerous  dangers,  is  always  the  deep  satisfac- 
tion, springing  up  with  the  fear  and  filling  it  and 
glorifying  it,  at  finding  that  the  manhood  is  capable 
of  such  a  fear,  that  it  has  in  it  the  power  to  dread 
that  which  it  has  now  discovered  to  be  its  enemy. 
For  natures  might  be  graduated  by  the  fears  of 
which  they  are  capable.  And  to  come  to  a  higher 
fear  declares  a  higher  nature  and  sends  a  thrill  of 
conscious  dignity  all  through  the  life.  Man  glories 
to  find  that  he  cannot  play,  "  unconscious  of  his 
fate,"  like  the  "  little  victims  "  who  are  only  brutes. 
And  in  all  the  weight  of  danger  which  the  man  car- 
ries who  has  learned  to  care  for  his  soul,  there  is  a 


70  THE    SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE 

sober  joy  which  makes  his  life  the  happiest  in  all 
the  world.  I  think  we  can  have  no  idea  of  how  the 
inspiring  sense  of  human  dignity  would  fade  out  of 
the  life  of  our  race  if  man  came  to  really  think  him- 
self a  creature  of  no  spiritual  capacity  or  peril,  with 
a  chance  of  no  spiritual  heaven,  in  danger  of  no 
spiritual  hell. 

This  is  the  first  quality  of  the  struggle  with  sin — 
the  struggle  after  goodness.  I  would  always  men- 
tion this  first.  It  is  a  solemn  and  noble  exhilaration 
to  the  soul.  And  the  next  striking  thing  about  it 
is  the  silence  with  which  it  goes  on.  When  a  man 
begins  to  fight  his  sins  he  does  not  sound  a  trumpet 
to  tell  the  world  that  the  battle  is  begun.  The 
world  rightly  distrusts  any  such  parade,  and,  if  it 
hears  the  trumpet,  believes  that  it  is  no  real  battle 
which  is  so  vociferously  announced,  but  only  a 
sham  fight,  with  an  understanding  all  the  time  made 
between  the  man  and  his  sins  which  he  pretends  to 
wrestle  with.  The  essence  of  the  real  spiritual  fight 
is  its  silence.  A  man  is  stirred  to  the  depths  in 
some  great  revival  meeting,  and  with  an  impulse 
which  he  does  not  try  to  control,  he  lifts  up  his 
voice  and  shouts  his  hallelujah  to  the  Lord.  He 
declares  his  new  allegiance.  He  gives  himself  to 
Christ  with  "solemn  noise."  But  by  and  by  he 
begins  the  fight  that  he  must  fight  under  his  new 
Master.  His  old  sins  hear  what  he  has  done,  and 
gather  up  their  power  to  reclaim  their  servant. 
They  meet  him  in  the  old  familiar  places.  They 
find  him  in  his  shop,  in  his  study,  at  his  table,  in 
his  church.     There  he  must  fisrht  with  them.     The 


THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE 


71 


Other,— the  meeting  where  he  shouted, — that  was 
not  the  fight,  that  was  only  the  enh'stment.  This  is 
the  fight  and  there  is  no  noise;  all  is  silence  here. 
Men  see  some  sign,  it  may  be,  in  the  face,  a  new  light 
in  the  eye,  a  pressure  which  speaks  both  of  pain  and 
power  in  the  lips,  but  no  word  is  spoken.  The 
fight  is  too  personal.  It  is  for  the  man's  own  soul. 
The  fighters  are  the  man's  own  sins.  Oh,  how  it 
sometimes  transfigures  the  dull  street  as  we  are 
walking  in  it  and  suddenly  remember  that  a  very 
large  part  of  these  men  and  women  whom  we  pass, 
are  fighting  in  silence  battles  with  temptation,  with 
falsehood,  with  lust,  with  scorn,  with  doubt,  with 
despair,  with  cruelty,  which  make  their  lives  heroic! 
We  cannot  see  their  fight.  They  could  not  show  it 
to  us  if  they  would,  and  would  not  if  they  could. 
The  battle  is  "  above  the  clouds."  But  the  clouds 
of  men's  lives,  the  dull  and  dubious  and  foggy  sides 
which  they  turn  to  us,  cease  to  be  dreary  when  we 
allow  ourselves  to  think  that  behind  and  above  the 
dreariest  of  them  the  real  soul  of  the  man  is  fight- 
ing silently  with  its  sins,  and  winning  certainly  a 
better  life. 

It  is  this  silence  of  the  spiritual  struggle  that 
easily  lets  one  who  is  not  a  sharer  in  it  become 
sceptical  about  it.  I  do  not  doubt  that  there  are 
men  who  honestly  think  that  there  is  no  such  thing, 
that  it  is  all  a  matter  of  nerves  and  dreams.  That 
a  man  should  fight  with  other  men  to  win  from  them 
what  is  theirs — that  they  can  understand.  They  are 
doing  that  themselves  every  day.  But  that  a  man 
should  fight  with  himself  for  himself,  with  his  own 


72  THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE 

sins  for  his  own  soul, — that  is  incomprehensible. 
It  never  can  be  made  credible  to  such  a  disbeliever 
till  he  himself  undertakes  it.  When  he  does,  when, 
on  some  great,  new  birthday  of  his  life,  he  feels  his 
soul  claiming  him,  sees  it  beset — poor  thing! — with 
all  its  enemies,  and  gives  his  life  up  to  saving  it, — 
when  that  time  comes,  then  he  will  understand  the 
spiritual  fight  of  all  these  other  souls.  The  mists 
will  scatter  from  before  his  eyes,  and  that  fight  will 
seem  to  him  to  be  the  one  real  thing  that  is  really 
going  on  in  all  the  world.  The  earth  will  seem  to 
rock  with  it.  He  will  feel  it  all  about  him  when  he 
once  carries  it  within  him. 

And  this  suggests  another  characteristic  of  the 
spiritual  struggle,  namely,  x'l's,  companionsJiip.  Silent 
as  it  is,  it  is  not  solitary.  Have  we  not  all  felt 
sometimes  that  silence,  with  those  who  are  in 
genuine  sympathy  with  one  another,  brings  men 
nearer  together  than  any  talk  can  do  ?  Talk  neces- 
sarily obtrudes  details.  Talk  compels  me  to  feel 
the  special  form  of  a  brother's  life,  and  so,  in  the 
differences  which  there  must  be  between  the  form 
of  his  life  and  mine,  obscures  the  identity  of  spirit. 
But  two  souls  side  by  side,  doing  the  same  essential 
work  in  different  forms,  but  doing  it  in  silence,  feel 
one  another's  companionship  perfectly,  and  get  the 
best  blessing  and  help  from  one  another.  So  it  is 
in  men's  fight  with  their  sins.  Let  every  man  shout 
aloud  the  story  of  his  battle,  and  the  impression  will 
be  of  infinite  difference.  Let  every  man  fight  on 
with  earnestness,  but  with  no  foolish  attempt  to  tell 
the  details  of  his  struggle  to  his  brethren ;  and  the 


THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE  73 

truth  of  the  identical  spirit  that  pervades  them  all 
will  come  out  clear,  and  each  will  get  the  inspiration 
of  all  the  rest.  A  world  full  of  men  who  fight  their 
several  battles  in  their  several  circumstances  is  like 
one  of  those  old  eastern  towns  where  there  is  one 
single  fountain,  out  of  which  all  the  people  of  the 
town  have  to  draw  all  the  water  that  they  need. 
They  live  their  different  lives;  they  use  the  water 
which  they  draw  for  various  uses, — one  in  one  trade, 
another  in  another, — but  once  a  day  they  all  meet 
at  the  fountain  to  refill  their  pitchers  for  their  sev- 
eral works.  The  fountain  is  the  centre  of  the  town 
and  gives  it  all  its  unity.  So  the  souls  of  all  earn- 
est men  are  in  their  different  struggles,  but  they  all 
meet,  all  rest,  in  Him  who  is  the  supply,  the  foun- 
tain of  them  all,  the  God  to  whom  they  are  all  dedi- 
cated. He  who  is  the  fountain  of  goodness  is  the 
centre  in  whom  all  men  who  are  struggling  for  good- 
ness find  unity  with  one  another.  How  true,  how 
deep,  that  union  is!  You  have  not  learned  its  deep- 
est quality  if  you  require  that  men  should  tell  you 
what  their  struggles  are,  and  tell  you  that  they 
know  of  yours.  You  have  not  fully  learnt  it  unless, 
without  a  word,  you  live  in  company,  through  God, 
with  every  soul,  known  or  unknown,  whose  life  in 
its  own  way  is  seeking  Him. 

Yet  one  more  thing  about  the  spiritual  struggle 
which  gives  it  a  large  part  of  its  character  is  hs  pcr- 
petualjiess,  its  persistency.  It  is  to  run  on  through 
all  our  life.  We  always  do  differently  those  things 
which  we  do  temporarily  and  under  some  special 
demand,    and    those    other    things    which    we    do 


74  THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE 

continually  as  a  part  of  our  life.  The  first  are  spas- 
modic and  take  force  out  of  us.  The  others  are 
calm  and  determined,  and  put  life  into  us.  There 
is  always  a  difference  between  the  taking  of  occa- 
sional medicine  and  the  taking  of  regular  food.  And 
some  men  fight  their  sins  as  if  they  expected  to 
conquer  them  all  and  to  be  perfectly  good  by  to- 
morrow night.  Other  men  look  calmly  forward  and 
see  the  work  they  have  to  do  stretching  on  solemnly 
to  the  very  end;  and,  with  complete  dedication,  ac- 
cept struggle  not  as  the  temporary  necessity,  but  as 
the  perpetual  element  of  life.  Oh,  what  a  repose 
comes  to  a  man's  soul  when  he  has  once  done  that, 
— the  repose  not  of  idleness,  but  of  accepted  work. 
No  longer  does  he  tire  himself  in  trying  to  shirk 
what  he  knows  is  as  true  a  part  of  himself  as  the 
drawing  of  his  breath.  He  wakes  every  morning  to 
his  struggle,  not  with  weary  surprise,  but  with  glad 
recognition  that  his  struggle  is  still  there.  He  plans 
for  it  far  ahead  as  a  thing  which,  he  is  sure,  will  still 
be  with  him.  And  his  greatest  wonder  about  death 
and  heaven  is  how  he  can  ever  leave  behind  that 
which  is  such  a  true  part  of  himself,  and  what  it  will 
be  to  grow  in  goodness  against  no  resistance,  how 
it  will  seem  to  do  right  when  there  is  no  temptation 
to  do  wrong  which  must  first  be  trodden  under  foot. 
The  dignity  of  spiritual  struggle,  then,  its  silence, 
its  companionship,  and  its  perpetualness, — these  are 
the  positive  qualities  in  that  fight  with  unseen  sin  in 
which  every  true  man  is  engaged,  and  in  which  his 
deepest  life  is  lived.  I  want  still  to  suggest  to  you 
what  are  some  of  its  negative  qualities,  what  are 


THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE  75 

some  of  the  freedoms  into  which  a  man  is  liberated 
by  it,  at  the  same  time  that  it  gives  these  endow- 
ments to  his  h'fe.  When  St.  Paul  says  that  we 
wrestle"  against  principalities  and  powers,"  he  says 
also  that  "  we  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood." 
The  more  that  the  battle  zvitli  the  unseen  for  the 
unseen  takes  possession  of  a  man,  the  more  the  bat- 
tle with  the  sttnfor  the  seen  must  let  him  go.  You 
may  put  it  to  yourself  either  as  a  necessity  or  as  a 
privilege,  either  "  you  may  "  or  "  you  must."  But 
at  any  rate  the  two  are  inconsistent  with  one  another, 
the  eagerness  for  the  spiritual  and  for  the  temporal 
victory.  They  cannot  live  together.  This  liberty 
from  carnal  passions  and  struggles  will  be  the  best 
test  that  the  higher  spiritual  struggle  has  really  en- 
tered into  us.  When  the  passion  of  our  life  is  to 
conquer  sin  and  be  good,  we  shall  let  men  beat  us 
in  the  race  of  business;  we  shall  let  men  overwhelm 
our  wishes  with  their  arrogance,  or  drown  our  good 
repute  in  their  slanders,  wherever  the  great  fight  of 
our  life,  the  fight  with  sin,  would  suffer  a  moment's 
hindrance  by  our  effort  to  refute  the  slander  or  to 
right  the  wrong.  This  is  a  noble  liberty.  The  true 
struggler  with  sin  will  no  more  turn  out  of  his  way 
to  punish  a  man  who  has  wronged  him  than  the  cap- 
tain who  is  leading  his  army  into  deadly  fight  will 
stop  to  chase  a  fly  that  stings  him  on  the  way.  The 
battle  with  "principalities  and  powers"  puts  us 
above  the  fight  with  "  flesh  and  blood." 

Again,  this  assurance  of  the  Apostle,  that  the  true 
man's  battle  is  not  with  flesh  and  blood,  has  another 
meaning.     It  contains  that  old  truth  which  it  is  so 


76  THE    SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE 

hard  for  all  of  us  to  learn,  but  which,  when  we  have 
learned  it,  cuts  for  us  the  knots  of  so  many  difficul- 
ties,— the  truth  that  the  moral  trouble  of  our  lives 
does  not  He  in  our  circumstances,  and  that  it  is  not 
our  circumstances  that  we  have  got  to  conquer  in 
order  to  be  better  men.  Fighting  with  poverty, 
fighting  with  ignorance,  fighting  with  allurement, 
fighting  with  bad  health,  beating  ourselves  against 
the  narrow  walls  in  which  we  have  to  live, — those 
maybe  fights  that  we  cannot  escape;  but  none  of 
them  is  the  great  fight  of  our  life.  We  may  be  de- 
feated in  them  all,  and  yet  be  conquerors  in  the 
fight  to  which  God  sent  us.  Not  with  circumstan- 
ces but  with  spiritual  conditions  is  the  struggle 
that  makes  us  men  ;  not  with  the  things  the  tempter 
uses  for  his  tools,  but  with  the  tempter;  not  against 
flesh  and  blood,  but  against  spiritual  wickedness. 

But  still  more  Paul's  view  of  life  shows  us  the 
folly  of  substituting  personal  hostilities  for  the  war 
with  wickedness.  It  is  so  easy  to  hate  a  wicked  man  ! 
It  is  so  hard  to  hate  a  sin!  And  men  have  always 
been  letting  one  slip  into  the  place  of  the  other. 
This  is  what  has  made  those  dreadful  things  called 
religious  wars,  and  the  persecutions  of  heretics, 
whicTh  have  stained  the  pages  of  Christian  history 
with  such  unchristian  blots.  Three  hundred  years 
and  more  ago  two  knights  stood  before  the  great  Em- 
peror Charles  the  Fifth,  one  asserting  and  the  other 
denying  the  doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Conception. 
The  Emperor  bade  them  fight  their  battle  out  with 
spears  upon  the  field.  They  fought;  and  the  cham- 
pion of  the  disputed  doctrine  unhorsed  his  adversary 


THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE  TJ 

and  compelled  him  to  confess  his  error  as  he  lay 
helpless  on  the  ground.  What  a  strange,  deep  twist 
there  must  have  been  in  men's  minds  before  such  a 
performance  could  have  meant  anything  to  them. 
Imagine  the  brave  young  victor  standing  with  his 
foot  upon  his  prostrate  foe.  He  has  conquered  him. 
He  hears  the  words  of  reluctant  and  insincere  con- 
fession groaned  forth  between  his  tortured  lips. 
And  then,  suppose,  in  all  his  flush  of  victory  there 
start  up  in  his  own  soul,  as  well  there  might  unless 
he  is  merely  a  splendid  animal  with  an  arm  that  is 
invincible  and  a  mind  incapable  of  thought, — sup- 
pose there  start  up  in  his  own  soul  doubts  about 
the  dogma  in  whose  behalf  he  has  fought  and  con- 
quered. Suppose  it  seems  to  him,  all  of  a  sudden, 
to  be  incredible, — this  for  which  he  has  risked  his 
life.  How  worthless  this  battle  which  he  has  just 
fought  with  his  brother  knight  must  seem  to  him! 
Noiv  the  only  real  fight  is  just  beginning  in  his  own 
troubled  soul.  The  shouts  of  the  people  tell  him 
he  has  conquered,  and  the  doctrine  is  sustained.  He 
knows  that  the  battle  is  yet  to  fight,  that  it  lies  be- 
tween him  and  these  unseen  doubts.  The  victory 
over  flesh  and  blood  withers  into  worthlessness  even 
as  he  takes  its  laurel.  The  true  wrestling  is  to  be 
with  doubt  and  unbelief;  and  for  that  he  goes  to 
the  silence  of  a  cloister  or  the  venerable  peace  of 
some  altar  in  the  Church. 

We  do  not  set  our  knights  on  horseback  any 
longer  for  the  faith,  but  oh!  the  cheaper,  tawdrier 
way  in  which  we  set  denomination  over  against  de- 
nomination, and  count  the  majorities  of  church  over 


78  THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE 

rival  church,  and  think  that  that  has  anything  to  do 
with  the  answering  of  the  question  over  which  the 
soul  of  man  is  anxious, — What  is  truth  ?  We  do  not 
any  longer  kill  one  disbeliever,  but  we  think  that  in 
some  way  by  hating  and  abusing  him  we  substan- 
tiate our  own  belief.  Only  when  in  a  man's  own 
soul  the  real  strife  comes,  does  it  appear  how  worth- 
less all  that  which  we  called  fighting  for  the  truth 
really  was.  When  the  "  powers  of  the  air  "  are  up 
in  arms  against  us,  when  our  own  hearts  fling  their 
doubts  in  our  faces,  when  we  are  wrestling  for  be- 
lief with  the  devil  of  unbelief  who  has  taken  posses- 
sion of  our  own  souls, — then  is  the  moment  when 
we  are  least  likely  to  revile  the  unbeliever.  The 
fight  with  "  principalities  and  powers"  frees  us  from 
the  struggle  with  flesh  and  blood.  That  is  the 
human  charity  and  patience  which  belong  to  all 
deep  life. 

And  just  once  more,  the  law  that  the  deepest 
struggle  of  life  is  spiritual  gives  us,  when  we  have 
realized  it,  the  power  to  separate  between  the 
special  forms  and  the  essential  spirit  of  the  wicked- 
nesses that  are  around  us,  and  always  to  fight  against 
the  spirit,  not  against  the  form.  To  denounce  dis- 
honesty not  because  it  is  dishonest,  but  because  the 
cheater  happens  to  be  cheating  us;  to  abuse  im- 
purity because  of  some  offensive  aspect  which  for 
the  moment  it  has  taken;  to  upbraid  slavery  not 
for  the  absolute  wrong  that  it  does  to  the  slave's 
manhood,  but  for  the  blood  that  a  specially  cruel 
master  draws  from  the  slave's  back, — all  of  these 
are  fightings  not  against  the  spirit  but  against  the 


THE   SPIRITUAL   STRUGGLE  79 

form  of  sin.  Christ  set  us  nobly  an  example  of  the 
fight,  not  against  the  form,  but  against  the  spirit, 
when,  instead  of  rebuking  the  single  bad  acts  which 
He  saw  about  Him,  He  laid  the  strong  and  tender 
hand  of  His  Redemption  on  the  essential  badness 
of  the  human  heart,  and  so  has  changed  the  world. 

O  friends,  that  we  might  know — I  hope  that 
many  of  you  do  know  already — the  privilege  and 
joy  of  that  profoundest  struggle,  in  which  a  man, 
full  of  the  passion  of  holiness  and  faith,  wrestles 
with  sin  and  doubt;  and,  coming  by  Christ  who  is 
our  Brother  to  God  who  is  our  Father,  finds  etern- 
ally in  Him  the  goodness  and  the  faith  which  are 
well  worth  all  the  struggle  through  which  we  may 
have  to  reach  them,  and  without  which  no  man  really 
lives. 


V. 

THE   BATTLEMENTS  OF  THE  LORD. 

"  Take  away  her  battlements,  for  they  are  not  the  Lord's." — 
Jeremiah  v.  lo. 

It  seems  to  be  a  hard  and  cruel  cry  which  the 
Prophet  Jeremiah  utters  in  these  words.  Jerusalem 
was  the  City  of  God.  Over  the  choosing  and  win- 
ning of  the  picturesque  site  where  it  was  to  stand, 
over  its  gradual  growth,  over  the  building  of  its 
temple,  over  its  fortifications  and  embellishments, 
over  its  fortunes  in  peace  and  war,  God  had  watched 
with  peculiar  care.  Its  enemies  had  been  His  ene- 
mies, its  friends  His  friends.  And  now  His  city  was 
beset  by  foes.  She  stood,  almost  visibly  trembling, 
upon  the  rocky  height  where  God  had  set  her,  al- 
most as  if  she  were  a  frightened  deer  which  had 
taken  refuge  there  from  the  dogs  of  war  whom  she 
could  hear  all  round  her,  howling  for  her  blood. 
The  Chaldeans  were  pressing  upon  her  and  thirsting 
for  her  life.  And  the  poor  city  was  getting  comfort 
out  of  the  single  thought  that  she  was  well  protec- 
ted. Harassed  and  frightened,  she  looked  up  to  her 
walls  and  there  were  the  battlements  which  she  had 
built.  They  surely  would  protect  her.  To  be  sure 
they  were  her  own,  not  God's.  He  had  not  bade 
her  build  them.     She  had  built  them  even  against 

80 


THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE   LORD  8 1 

His  will.  But  now,  how  strong  they  looked  !  How 
well  it  was  that  she  had  ventured  to  put  them  up! 
How  the  enemy  would  tremble  at  them!  Only  to 
picture  herself  without  them  made  her  shudder. 
And  just  then  rang  the  stern  voice  of  her  prophet 
through  her  streets,  "  Her  battlements  are  not  the 
Lord's,  take  them  away!"  The  very  thing  she 
trusted  in!  Her  pride  and  strength  and  hope  and 
confidence — take  them  away!  Was  this  the  God 
who  loved  her,  who  had  promised  to  protect  her  ? 
Was  this  His  prophet  whose  voice  now  cruelly  com- 
manded the  destruction  of  the  only  thing  that  could 
save  His  city  ?  Well  may  the  people  have  trembled 
in  the  streets  and  thought  that  their  God  had  for- 
saken them  indeed ! 

This  is  the  picture  which  stands  out  in  the  proph- 
et's verse.  Of  what  that  picture  represents  and 
stands  for  in  our  modern  life  I  want  to  speak  this 
morning.  Every  human  life  is  dear  to  God.  Every 
human  life,  when  it  thinks  of  how  God  has  blessed 
it  and  shown  to  it  the  tokens  of  His  love,  must 
seem  to  itself  to  be  a  sort  of  Jerusalem,  a  city  built 
and  furnished  and  glorified  by  God.  Such  a  re- 
semblance between  the  life  which  God  loves  and  the 
city  which  He  used  to  love  so  dearly  has  been  often 
suggested.  The  picture  of  Jesus  weeping  over 
Jerusalem,  for  instance,  has  been  always  appropri- 
ated by  souls  which  wanted  to  depict  the  sorrow  of 
the  Saviour  over  the  wasted  opportunities  of  any 
life.  Souls  are  Jerusalems  which  God  has  built  and 
which  are  perpetually  watched  and  protected  by 
His  love. 


82  THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE    LORD 

And  then  the  parallel  seems  to  go  on.  As  God 
by  His  prophet  bade  the  defences  of  old  Jerusalem 
to  be  swept  away,  and  would  not  tolerate  any  at- 
tempt to  save  the  city  by  means  which  He  had  not 
ordained,  and  with  what  seemed  severest  cruelty 
stripped  her  bare  of  the  very  things  of  which  she 
had  been  most  proud  and  in  which  she  had  most 
trusted,  so  there  are  many  souls  which  seem  to  have 
been  treated  by  God  in  the  same  way.  They  too 
have  built  themselves  defences  and  decorations 
which  He  has  broken  down.  They  too  have  been 
left  desolate  and  bare  just  at  the  time  when  it 
seemed  as  if  they  most  needed  luxuriance  and  ful- 
ness. They  too  have  seemed  to  find  God  cruel  and 
stern  as,  with  a  hand  which  appeared  to  have  no 
pity,  He  tore  their  dearest  things  away;  and  they 
too  have  had  at  last  to  learn,  just  as  Jerusalem  did, 
that  their  God  had  never  been  so  kind  to  them  as 
just  in  those  days  when  He  took  away  the  battle- 
ments which  were  not  His  and  left  them  naked  and 
exposed,  with  nothing  to  trust  to  but  His  help.  It 
is  of  this  treatment  of  lives  by  God — the  taking  away 
of  the  battlements  which  are  not  His — that  I  desire 
to  speak. 

Th  J  distinction  which  the  words  imply  is  one  that 
every  man  who  is  aware  of  God  at  all  can  easily 
understand.  God  is  so  universal,  so  complete,  that 
the  life  which  He  occupies  and  guards  He  claims 
entirely  for  His  own  guardianship  and  occupancy. 
He  wants  it  wholly  for  Himself.  That  which  the 
man  who  lives  in  the  life  does,  he  must  do  as  God's 
tenant,  everything   that    he   does  being  embraced 


THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE   LORD  83 

and  surrounded  by  God's  ownership.  All  that  the 
man  does  to  make  his  life  safe  and  strong  and  grow- 
ing, he  must  do  as  the  tenant  of  God,  completing 
and  strengthening  God's  life — the  life  that  belongs 
to  God — in  God's  way.  Thus  every  good  effort  of 
a  man  to  perfect  his  life,  every  right  and  healthy 
culture  which  he  gives  to  himself  in  reverence  of 
and  obedience  to  God,  is  one  of  God's  battlements 
— one  of  the  methods  by  which  God  through  him 
develops  and  protects  this  city  of  His  love.  But 
when  a  man  forgets  his  tenantry  and  tries  to 
strengthen  his  life  as  if  it  were  no  property  of  God's, 
as  if  it  were  no  sacred,  holy  thing,  but  merely  a  per- 
sonal possession  of  his  own;  when,  then,  he  defends 
it  by  mere  earthly  policies  and  plans,  or  even  by 
deeds  which  are  wicked  and  base, — then  he  is  putting 
on  God's  city  battlements  which  are  not  God's;  and 
it  is  these  which  God  often  pulls  down  because  the 
strength  which  seems  to  be  in  them  is  weakness. 
All  that  a  man  does  to  make  his  life  safer  and  better 
and  stronger,  in  obedience  to  God,  are  the  battle- 
ments of  God ;  all  that  a  man  does  to  strengthen  his 
life  in  selfishness  and  disregard  of  God  are  the  man's 
own  battlements;  and  however  for  a  time  these  last 
may  stand,  and  men  may  trust  in  them,  at  last  they 
must  come  down,  and  it  is  the  mercy  of  God  that 
calls  for  their  removal. 

Indeed,  no  man  has  compassed  and  gone  around 
the  mercifulness  of  God  on  every  side,  who  has  not 
discovered  this  kind  of  mercy  in  Him  and  felt  its 
richness  and  beauty.  A  child  has  certainly  known 
only  part  of  his  father's  love  who  has  thought  of  his 


84  THE   BATTLEMENTS  OF  THE   LORD 

father  as  loving  only  in  his  indulgence.  There  is  a 
whole  other  region  of  his  father's  love  which  he  has 
never  entered, — the  region  in  which  his  father,  with 
a  profounder  care  for  him  and  also  with  a  completer 
trust  in  him,  shall  show  his  mercy  by  denial.  We 
can  all  remember,  I  suppose,  how  once  if  men  had 
asked  us  how  we  knew  God  loved  us,  the  answer  that 
leaped  to  our  lips  would  have  been  the  glowing  cata- 
logue of  all  that  He  had  given  us,  all  the  incentives 
which  He  had  put  into  our  lives,  all  the  securities 
by  which  He  had  surrounded  us,  all  the  successes 
by  which  He  had  shown  us  that  we  belonged  to 
Him.  These  still  remain.  These  still  are  on  our 
lips  when  we  sing  His  praises;  but  if  we  have  at  all 
compassed  His  love  as  the  years  have  swept  along, 
there  is  another  side  of  it  which  has  grown  also 
dear  to  us,  and  which  has  in  its  dearness  a  peculiar 
depth  and  strength  and  sweetness  which  are  all  its 
own.  There  is  a  profound  strain  in  our  thankful- 
ness which  sings  of  the  many  times  in  which  it  has 
been  through  the  exhibition  of  our  own  weakness 
that  God  has  shown  us  His  strength;  of  the  plans 
and  purposes  which  He  has  brought  to  failure  in 
order  that  out  of  their  failure  He  might  build  suc- 
cess. It  is  a  poor  and  wretched  life  which  has  not 
such  consecrations  of  its  disappointments  and  its 
miseries.  A  life  which  has  not  these  carries  as  a 
burden  what  it  ought  to  be  hugging  as  a  treasure; 
and  one  whole  side  of  the  perfect  sun  of  God's 
mercy,  which  burns  with  a  glory  all  its  own,  this  life 
has  never  seen. 

Let  me  come  to  more  special  illustrations  of  what 


THE    BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE    LORD  8$ 

I  mean;  and  just  in  passing  I  may  note  how  true 
our  truth  is  of  the  history  of  the  great  groups  of 
men,  of  states  and  churches, — the  truth  that  God 
often  in  seeming  cruelty  tears  down  what  seems  to 
be  a  life's  strongest  protection  and  most  beautiful 
adornments,  in  order  that  He  may  make  the  life 
really  safe  and  really  beautiful.  The  groups  of 
men,  the  nations  and  the  churches,  often  seem  as 
if  they  were  men  seen  through  some  sort  of  lens 
which  magnified  their  size,  and,  while  it  blurred 
many  of  their  more  delicate  details,  brought  out  in 
broader  exhibition  the  great  fundamental  features 
of  human  character  and  tendency,  and  so  gave  us  a 
chance  to  study  some  things  concerning  man  and 
them  in  a  way  which  the  individual  man  did  not 
make  possible.  And  what  can  tell  the  story  of  the 
breaking  down  of  old  and  treasured  institutions  in 
the  state,  what  can  put  a  meaning  behind  the  terri- 
ble convulsions  or  the  slow  growths  by  which  autoc- 
racy and  feudalism  have  disappeared  from  half  the 
world,  what  can  read  to  us  the  grand  and  simple 
secret  of  the  destruction  here  in  our  own  land  of 
slavery  which  to  so  many  men  seemed  to  be  the 
very  palladium  of  our  liberties  and  the  very  battle- 
mented  crown  upon  our  nation's  head,  but  this,  that 
God  saw  in  each  age  that  what  the  nations  called 
their  strength  was  really  their  weakness,  and  out  of 
heaven  He  sent  forth  His  voice  crying:  "  Take  her 
battlements  away.     They  are  not  Mine." 

And  in  the  Church's  history,  who  does  not  know 
how  church  members  have  always  oeen  setting  their 
heart  upon  something,  some  statement  of  doctrine 


86  THE  BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE   LORD 

or  some  expedient  of  organization,  and  then  piling 
up  all  the  most  sacred  interests  of  their  religion  be- 
hind that;  as  men  in  a  besieged  town  bring  their 
most  delicate  and  precious  possessions  and  heap 
them  up  in  the  one  bomb-proof  that  they  think 
most  absolutely  impregnable.  Often  they  were  not 
wholly  sure  that  the'doctrine  on  which  they  staked 
everything  was  absolutely  true,  or  that  the  expedi- 
ent to  which  they  trusted  was  wholly  righteous;  but 
their  pride  and  their  fear  united  to  make  them 
treasure  it  and  raise  on  it  their  brightest  banner, 
and  think  that  in  it  the  Church's  safety  lay.  And 
what  are  all  the  Reformations,  with  their  fearful 
convulsions,  but  just  the  thunder  of  the  voice  of 
God  shaking  these  false  defences,  which  make  His 
Church  not  strong,  but  weak;  what  are  His  com- 
missions to  His  great  Reformers,  His  Luthers  and 
His  Cromwells,  but  the  same  old  message  which  He 
sent  by  His  Jeremiah — the  message  which  always 
sounds  so  cruel,  and  really  comes  out  of  the  heart  of 
His  tenderest  and  most  divine  compassion — bidding 
them  take  down  the  battlements  which  are  not  His. 

But  I  do  not  want  to  dwell  upon  the  nations  or  the 
churches.  I  want  to  come  more  close  to  you.  What 
I  have  been  saying  may  serve  for  illustration;  and 
now,  turn  to  the  way  in  which  God  treats  our  lives, 
the  way  in  which,  I  think,  some  of  you  will  recog- 
nize that  He  has  treated  you. 

I.  The  blankest,  plainest,  and  most  common  case 
of  all  is  that  in  which  a  man  tries  to  secure  pros- 
perity by  fraud  or  some  kind  of  unrighteousness. 
The  forms  of  such  attempts  are  numberless.     The 


THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE    LORD  S/ 

essence  of  them  all  is  one.  If  I  could  issue  a  sum- 
mons and  subpcEna  the  experiences  of  you  business 
men;  I  should  not  lack  for  testimony  or  for  illustra- 
tions in  the  very  lines  of  life  where  you  are  most 
familiar.  There  is  no  line  of  life  wherein  men  seek 
success  in  which  there  are  not  men  who  believe  that 
they  can  get  success,  and  protect  success  when  it  is 
got,  by  fraud.  The  petty  shopkeeper  who  misrep- 
resents his  goods,  the  great  capitalist  who  misleads 
the  market,  the  office-seeker  who  defrauds  the  polls, 
the  doctor  trying  to  impress  men  with  pretensions 
which  he  knows  are  not  true,  the  lawyer  pretending 
to  believe  what  he  does  not  believe,  the  writer  mak- 
ing men  read  what  he  writes  by  flavoring  it  with 
impurity,  the  leaders  of  society  who  degrade  its 
purity  that  they  may  add  to  its  attractiveness, — 
where  should  we  end  the  catalogue!  It  bewilders 
us  when  we  think  of  the  amount  of  labor  which  has 
been  expended,  which  is  being  expended  every  day, 
in  building  these  false  defences  of  men's  wealth  and 
comfort. 

And  then  what  comes?  God  does  not  want  you 
to  be  poor;  He  does  not  want  you  to  be  wretched; 
and  yet,  in  spite  of  countless  exceptions  and  delays, 
how  the  conviction  has  grown  rife  among  men  that 
there  is  some  power  whose  tendency  it  is  to  break 
down  every  battlement  of  fraud  and  iniquity,  and 
leave  exposed  to  ruin  the  prosperity  which  tried  to 
shelter  itself  behind  such  feebleness.  "A  power  not 
ourselves  which  makes  "  against  tuirightcousncss — 
that  is  the  impression  which  many  men's  experience, 
conspiring  with   their  own  misgivings  as  to   what 


88  THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE   LORD 

ought  to  be  the  world's  construction  and  govern- 
ment,has  given  them  of  God.  Has  God  shown  Him- 
self so  at  all  to  you  ?  Have  you  seen  any  of  your 
tricks  for  the  support  of  your  prosperity  fall  into 
ruin  ?  Have  you  looked  up,  ready  to  curse  God  for 
His  cruelty  ?  And  then  perhaps  have  you  seen  some- 
thing in  the  face  of  God  which  made  you  stop,  which 
put  a  new  question  in  your  soul,  which  called  up  the 
deeper  perception  of  a  deeper  love,  and  at  last,  as 
you  thought  and  thought  and  thought  about  it,  has 
let  you  see  that  God  never  was  so  kind  to  you  as 
when  He  broke  down  the  wrong  and  the  sham  be- 
hind which  you  had  sheltered  your  budding  hopes 
and  compelled  you  to  trust  those  hopes  to  Him, 
that  He  might  first  make  them  over  into  such  hopes 
as  should  be  worthy  of  a  child  of  His,  and  then 
might  ripen  them  into  fulfilment  in  His  own  time 
and  His  own  way  ?  If  you  have  known  any  such 
experience  as  that,  you  have  been  taken  into  one  of 
the  richest  rooms  of  God's  great  schoolhouse,  one 
of  the  rooms  in  which  He  makes  His  ripest  and 
completest  scholars.  Oh,  if  our  souls  to-day  could 
mount  to  the  height  of  some  such  prayer  as  this: 
"  Lord,  if  I  am  building  around  the  prosperity  of 
my  life  any  battlements  which  are  not  Thine,  any 
defences  of  deceit  or  injustice  or  selfishness,  break 
down  those  battlements  whatever  pain  it  brings, 
however  it  may  seem  to  leave  my  hopes  exposed," 
— if  we  could  go  up  into  some  mountain  of  aspira- 
tion and  pray  that  prayer,  how  earnest  and  calmly 
ready  for  whatever  God  chose  to  do  to  us  our  souls 
would  grow! 


THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE    LORD  89 

2.  Again,  see  how  God  deals  with  men's  efforts 
to  secure  for  themselves  peace  and  repose  of  mind, 
freedom  from  disturbance  and  anxiety.  The  way 
that  a  man  first  tries  to  secure  that  precious  treasure 
is  often  by  the  studious  culture  of  his  self-compla- 
cency :  "  Let  me  be  able  to  think  well  of  myself,  and 
then  behind  that  wall  of  self-esteem  my  soul  may 
sit  down  undisturbed."  And  so  a  man  goes  to 
work  to  cultivate  his  satisfaction  with  himself.  He 
tells  over  to  himself  his  own  good  qualities.  He 
shuts  his  eyes  to  all  his  own  defects.  He  keeps  in 
the  company  of  the  men  who  are  most  sure  to  praise 
him.  He  shuns  any  rough,  honest  soul  who  will  re- 
mind him  of  his  faults.  He  does  the  things  he  can 
do  best,  and  so  keeps  conscious  of  his  powers.  He 
avoids  the  tasks  which  it  is  hard  for  him  to  do,  and 
which  will  expose  his  weakness.  So  he  tends  his 
self-complacency.  He  feeds'  it  and  pets  it  and 
makes  it  grow,  and  behind  it  he  sits  down  in  the 
peace  of  self-content.  But  then  how  often,  when  a 
man  has  just  got  his  self-complacency  built  up, 
there  comes  some  dreadful  blow  that  breaks  it 
down.  Some  terrible  mortification  comes.  Some 
shameful  exposure  breaks  out.  Men  find  out  as  it 
seems  by  diabolic  instinct  where  your  weak  spot  is. 
Or,  without  any  blow,  any  attack  or  open  scandal, 
there  just  comes  creeping  in  upon  you  misgivings 
about  yourself,  visions  of  your  own  meaner  and 
smaller  parts  which  you  have  tried  to  hide  and  to 
forget,  and  you  find  that  your  whole  bulwark  of 
self-complacency  is  riddled  and  honeycombed  with 
doubts   and   suspicions   about   yourself;   and  your 


90  THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE   LORD 

well-sheltered  peace  shivers  and  shudders  behind  its 
useless  barricade.  It  is  a  terrible  condition  unless 
it  can  be  but  preliminary  to  another,  unless  where  the 
worthless  barrier  of  self-complacency  has  fallen  the 
true  protection  of  humility  can  be  built  up,  and 
the  soul  can  come  to  that  only  true  peace  and  re- 
pose which  is  attained  by  the  absolute  distrust  of 
itself  and  the  hiding  of  itself  behind  the  great,  wise, 
strong,  loving  guardianship  of  God.  This  was  what 
Jesus  did  for  Nicodemus.  This  is  what  He  wants  to 
do  for  all  our  souls,  which  He  first  exposes  and  fills 
with  shame,  and  then  shelters  in  all  their  conscious 
nakedness  behind  Himself. 

3.  Then  take  another  of  the  precious  things  of 
human  life  which  a  man  may  try  to  keep  safe  be- 
hind false  defences.  The  esteem  of  our  fellow-men 
— no  standard  of  life  is  true  and  healthy  which  does 
not  count  that  a  very  precious  thing  indeed.  Not 
the  most  precious, — on  the  contrary,  a  thing  to  be 
always  held  with  a  certain  looseness,  as  a  man  in 
shipwreck  holds  the  box  in  which  his  property  is 
contained,  ready  to  let  it  drop  at  any  moment  when 
it  must  be  dropped  to  save  his  life.  So  a  man  ought 
to  hold  his  fellow-men's  esteem,  ready  to  let  it  drop 
the  moment  that  he  cannot  hold  it  and  yet  keep  with 
it  his  own  self-respect  and  his  loyalty  to  God.  But 
while  it  is  not  the  most  precious,  it  is  a  very  pre- 
cious thing.  All  true  men  desire  it  and  value  it.  And 
now  suppose  that  that  esteem,  your  reputation 
among  men,  is  guarded  and  kept  safe  behind  some 
false  conception  which  they  have  formed  of  you. 
They  think  some  act   which  you   have  done  was 


THE    BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE   LORD  9I 

brave  when  it  was  really  cowardly,  or  unselfish 
when  it  was  really  full  of  selfishness,  or  the  result 
of  deliberate  intelligence  when  it  was  really  nothing 
but  a  happy  blunder.  It  may  be  that  you  have 
falsely  claimed  these  merits  for  yourself,  or  it  may 
be  that  they  have  chosen  to  attribute  them  to  you. 
In  either  case  there  sits  your  reputation  behind  its 
false  defences,  its  battlements  which  are  not  truth's 
and  are  not  God's.  I  think  that  very  often  a  man 
is  genuinely  impatient  with  such  a  misconception  of 
his  merits.  He  even  hates  it.  The  reputation 
which  is  shielded  behind  it  seems  to  be  a  mean  and 
sickly  thing.  But  very  seldom  has  a  man  the 
strength  of  soul  to  put  up  his  own  hand  and  pull 
that  misconception  down.  It  is  a  hard  thing  for  a 
man  to  speak  out  and  say:  "  I  am  not  what  you 
think  me.  Here  is  what  I  am.  Judge  me  truly, 
and  hate  or  praise  me  as  I  genuinely  deserve."  In 
our  nobler  moods  we  may  do  that;  but  often  God, 
kind  to  our  feebleness,  spares  us  the  effort  and  does 
it  for  us.  Very  often  He  tears  away  our  false  re- 
pute and  shows  us  as  we  are,  lets  men  behold  us  at 
our  worst.  And  many  and  many  a  man,  I  think, 
who  would  not  have  the  strength  himself  to  tell  men 
that  he  was  not  all  they  thought  him,  is  profoundly 
glad  when  God  in  some  way  sweeps  the  cloud  aside 
and,  reducing  the  exaggerated  reputation  to  reality, 
gives  him  a  chance  to  win  men's  truer,  even  though 
it  be  far  more  moderate,  honor  for  what  he  really  is. 
4.  I  shall  take  only  one  illustration  more,  but  it  is 
perhaps  the  most  urgent  and  impressive  of  them  all. 
Every  one  of  us  has  been  tempted — and  most  of  us 


92  THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE   LORD 

have  yielded  sometimes  to  the  temptation — to  guard 
the  truths  which  we  hold  dear  and  sacred,  and  the 
faith  which  we  have  in  the  truths  we  hold,  by  bat- 
tlements which,  if  we  questioned  ourselves,  we  knew 
were  certainly  not  God's.  I  believe  some  truth  of 
my  religion;  I  believe  it  really;  I  know  that  it  is 
true.  But  I  know  also  that  there  is  a  great  deal  in 
the  world  which  is  in  conspiracy  against  my  truth. 
I  know  that  I  hold  it  against  enemies.  I  know  that 
my  faith  in  it  is  constantly  in  danger;  and,  knowing 
that,  it  is  only  too  natural  that  I  should  try  to  build 
around  it  every  possible  defence,  and  even  tolerate 
and  help  to  build  defences  which  I  know  are  not 
strong  and  sound.  See  what  some  of  those  false  de- 
fences are.  I  may  put  forward  arguments,  not 
merely  to  other  people,  but  to  myself,  which  I  know 
are  fallacies  and  do  not  really  support  the  faith  I 
hold.  I  may  defame  the  character  and  the  religious 
life  of  men  who  do  not  hold  my  truth,  trying  to 
make  out  that  disbelief  in  it  makes  a  man  wicked, 
and  so  hoping  to  strengthen  my  faith  in  it  by  all  my 
dread  of  sin.  I  may  put  forward  the  authority  of 
men  who  have  believed  what  I  believe,  and  who 
have  been  very  good  and  noble  men,  but  whose 
goodness  and  nobleness  I  know  had  no  inherent  and 
essential  connection  with  their  having  believed  this 
truth.  Or  I  may  try  to  intensify  my  sense  of  its 
preciousness  by  making  it  exclusive,  talking  of  what 
ought  to  be  the  world's  possession  as  if  it  were  my 
own  peculiar  privilege,  or  by  narrowing  the  truth  to 
my  form  of  it  so  as  to  think  that  no  man  holds  it 
who  does  not  hold  it  just  like  me.     Or,  finally,  I 


THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF  THE   LORD  93 

may  build  up  around  my  faith  the  sheer,  dense  wall 
of  bigotry — that  gross,  coarse,  thick,  unreasonable 
mixture  of  pride  and  fear  and  obstinacy  and  hesita- 
tion, all  mingled  and  kneaded  together  into  a  stub- 
born mass,  through  which  men  flatter  themselves 
that  no  arrow  of  doubt  can  penetrate,  but  through 
which  it  is  also  absolutely  certain  that  no  light  can 
come. 

These  are  the  false  defences  which  men  build 
about  their  faith,  and  when  they  are  built  they  seem 
to  their  builders  to  be  not  merely  part  of  the  faith 
which  they  assume  to  protect,  but  often  its  most 
precious  part.  The  very  fact  that  it  is  of  the  man's 
own  building,  and  not  of  God's,  makes  the  cabinet 
in  which  he  has  enshrined  his  faith  even  dearer  to  a 
man's  soul  than  God's  jewel  it  enshrines.  Sooner  or 
later,  to  every  man  who  builds  such  battlements 
about  his  faith  the  hour  of  their  destruction  comes, 
and  it  is  very  terrible.  The  false  argument  is  tri- 
umphantly refuted.  The  slandered  heretic  does 
some  noble  act  that  refutes  at  one  stroke  all  my 
slanders.  The  authorities  on  whom  I  have  relied 
desert  me.  And,  so  far  from  accepting  my  faith  in 
the  narrow  and  sectarian  way  in  which  I  hold  it,  the 
world  makes  it  evident  to  me  that  my  faith  never  can 
become  its  faith  until  it  has  broadened  itself  to  meet 
needy  humanity  with  the  entire  truth.  And,  finally, 
my  bigotry  displays  its  essential  stupidity  and  hate- 
fulness  so  that  not  even  I,  the  bigot,  can  give  it  any 
longer  reverence  or  love  or  trust.  These  are  terrible 
blows  to  a  man's  faith,  when  its  trusted  defences 
fall.     The  faith,  stripped  and  exposed,  frightened 


94  THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE    LORD 

and  bewildered,  halts  and  thinks  that  everything  is 
gone.  It  sees  the  sceptic  standing  and  shouting  on 
the  ruins  of  its  battlements,  with  his  sword  drawn, 
all  ready  to  leap  over  the  wall  and  take  its  life. 

And  just  then  it  is  —  then,  in  the  moment  of  its 
apparent  failure — that  to  many  a  frightened  faith 
the  revelation  of  its  true  strength  has  come.  It  is 
just  then,  when  it  seemed  as  if  what  he  had  believed 
was  at  the  mercy  of  every  unbelieving  enemy,  that 
many  and  many  a  believer  has  to  his  wonder  learned 
that  the  only  real  strength  of  a  belief  lies  in  its  ab- 
solute truth;  that,  in  the  long  run,  no  weight  of  ac- 
cumulated authority  and  no  sacredness  of  organized 
institutions  can  keep  a  faith  safe  which  is  not  true; 
and  likewise  that  no  faith  which  is  true  can  ever 
perish  for  the  mere  lack  of  the  weak  battlements  of 
human  authority  or  institutional  support.  There 
is  no  confidence  or  real  belief  in  that  which  he  be- 
lieves for  any  man  till  he  learns  that.  Until  he 
learns  that,  you  will  see  him  out  upon  the  walls  af- 
ter every  gale  of  unbelief,  anxiously  counting  his 
authorities  and  setting  up  his  pasteboard  battle- 
ments which  have  been  blown  down.  When  he  has 
learned  that,  he  trusts  his  faith  and  lives  in  it. 
Driven  back  to  the  fundamental  questions  concern- 
ing it,  enlarging  it  into  its  most  majestic  simplicity, 
finding  the  witness  of  its  truth  in  God's  Word  and 
his  own  soul,  finding  every  day  new  strength  and 
new  simplicity  in  his  faith  as  it  meets  each  new  at- 
tack, there  is  no  gratitude  in  all  his  grateful  heart  so 
deep,  so  earnest,  as  that  with  which  he  thanks  the 
God  who  let  him  be  bewildered  and  frightened  by 


THE    BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE    LORD  95 

the  destruction  of  the  weak,  unreal  protections  of  his 
faith.  "  Now,  at  last,"  he  says,  "  I  know  what  it  is 
really  to  believe." 

Oh,  there  are  many  believers  among  us  for  whom 
God  has  done  all  that.  As  they  look  back  over  their 
lives,  there  are  days  whose  memory  still  makes  them 
shudder,  days  when  it  seemed  to  them  as  if  all  faith 
were  gone  and  all  the  world  of  truth  were  but  the 
very  blackness  of  darkness  of  despair.  And  yet 
these  very  days  are  the  days  out  of  which  came  the 
light  that  now  makes  their  life  a  perpetual  song  and 
joy.  For  then  God  showed  them  that  for  His  child 
there  can  be  no  final  witness  of  His  truth  except 
Himself  and  the  immediate  testimony  of  His  Spirit, 
and  that  whatever  hinders  or  restrains  the  giving 
of  Himself  to  His  child's  soul,  however  sacred  or 
necessary  it  may  seem,  it  must  be  His  wish  and  His 
child's  best  blessing  to  have  swept  away. 

I  turn  back  from  these  illustrations  to  the  general 
truth  which  they  all  illustrate.  I  hope  that  they 
have  made  it  clear.  Failure,  the  breaking  down  of 
men's  confidences,  the  going  to  pieces  of  men's 
plans, — failure  means  many  things.  One  of  the 
things  which  it  means  is  this:  that  God  will  not  let 
the  soul  hide  behind  any  protection  which  He  knows 
is  insecure.  His  whole  love  binds  Him  to  let  the 
soul  know  its  blunder  before  it  is  too  late.  The 
general  goes  through  the  field  where  his  army  lies 
full  in  the  face  of  the  enemy.  He  sees  each  soldier 
building  his  little  section  of  the  rampart  which,  all 
together,  is  to  protect  the  army.     What  shall  he  do 


96  THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE    LORD 

when  he  comes  to  one  poor  fellow  who,  instead  of 
piling  up  stones,  is  twisting  bits  of  straw  together 
and  making  an  ingenious,  pretty  fence  that  the  wing 
of  a  flying  bird  might  knock  away  ?  Is  it  cruelty 
when  the  wise  general  with  his  drawn  sword  cuts  the 
flimsy  fabric  down,  and  leaves  the  silly  soldier 
ashamed,  perhaps  angry,  but  convicted  and  exposed 
and  ready  for  better  work  ?  So  a  young  man  lays 
out  his  plans;  says,  "  I  will  be  this,  I  will  do  this,  I 
will  think  this";  devises  how  he  will  construct  his 
fragment  of  the  long  wall  that  all  true  men  are 
building,  which  is  to  stand  between  human  nature 
and  its  enemies.  He  thinks  his  plans  are  perfect, 
and  then  they  all  fail.  What  does  it  mean  ?  It  may 
mean  many  things.  It  is  blessed,  indeed,  if  the 
young  man  can  learn,  there  at  the  very  outset  of 
his  life,  that  one  of  the  things  which  it  means  is 
this:  that  his  Father  loves  him  so,  and  has  such 
great  things  for  him  to  be  and  do,  that  He  wants 
him  to  trust  His  love  completely — His  love  and 
nothing  else, — so  that  He  may  be  able  to  give  Him- 
self completely  to  His  child.  In  such  an  early  fail- 
ure of  his  first  bright  hopes  has  been  the  light  and 
salvation  of  many  a  man's  life. 

Sometimes  it  is  an  old  man  and  not  a  young  man 
to  whom  the  failure  comes.  When,  as  the  evening 
gathers  in,  a  man  for  whom  life  has  seemed  but  one 
long  success  looks  up,  and  lo !  much  that  has  seemed 
success  has  changed  its  whole  aspect  and  is  evidently 
failure;  when,  not  because  he  has  had  enough  of 
them  and  is  tired  of  them,  but  because  he  has  come 
into  the  fuller  light  and  sees  them  as  they  really  are, 


THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF  THE   LORD  97 

the  ambitions,  and  pleasures,  and  occupations  in 
which  he  has  spent  his  days  look  empty  and  dreary 
and  worthless  to  him ;  when  the  old  man  stands  and 
says  of  his  long  life,  "What  a  long  failure!" — is 
there  no  meaning  of  love  and  kindness  in  that 
revelation  which  has  come  to  him,  at  the  very  last, 
from  his  patient  and  loving  God  ?  Blessed,  indeed, 
it  is  for  him  if,  at  the  very  last,  standing  among  the 
ruins  of  the  battlements  which  it  has  been  the  busi- 
ness of  his  life  to  build,  he  can  in  utter  despair  of 
himself  give  himself  penitently  and  absolutely  up  to 
God,  and  look  forward  to  the  joy  of  testifying  by 
the  long  obedience  of  eternity  his  thankfulness  for 
the  mercy  which,  before  his  life  here  was  wholly 
over,  has  scattered  its  delusions  and  shown  him  his 
weakness  and  his  sin. 

I  hope  that  I  have  not  seemed  to  preach  to  you 
as  if  God  were  a  mere  destroyer,  jealously  taking 
away  out  of  our  lives  the  things  He  did  not  like, 
tearing  away  the  poor  defences  that  we  had  patched 
up  for  our  prosperity,  our  peace,  our  reputation, 
and  our  faith,  but  giving  us  nothing  in  their  place. 
I  have  tried  to  say  all  along  that  all  of  God's  de- 
structions are  only  to  make  way  for  stronger  build- 
ing of  His  own.  Let  me  tell  you  that  as  earnestly 
as  I  can  before  I  close.  For  everything  human  and 
weak  that  God  tears  out  of  your  life  He  has  some- 
thing strong  and  divine  to  put  in  it.  He  takes 
away  the  battlements  of  selfishness  only  that  He 
may  defend  you  with  Himself.  Everything  which 
you  have  a  right  to  do  at  all,  and  which  you  are 


98  THE   BATTLEMENTS   OF   THE    LORD 

doing  now  in  self-reliance,  it  is  possible  for  you  to  do 
in  direct  reliance  upon  Him;  and  our  lives  so  be- 
long to  His  life  that  it  is  only  when  the  healthy  ac- 
tivities of  life  are  based  upon  and  built  around  by 
trust  in  God  that  the  noble  capacity  of  those  activi- 
ties comes  out  and  the  whole  life  shines;  and  the 
old  Jerusalem  which  sat  upon  her  earthly  hill  be- 
comes the  New  Jerusalem  which  is  hung  down  from 
heaven  by  the  golden  chains  of  God's  love. 

If  the  work  of  Christ  for  a  man's  soul  is  to  fill  it 
with  complete  humility,  and  then,  when  it  is  utterly 
humbled  and  made  distrustful  of  itself,  to  bid  it 
stand  up  upon  its  feet  and  bravely  begin  the  new 
life  with  trust  in  Him, — then  is  it  not  Christ,  the 
Lord  to  whom  we  must  be  always  coming  back,  of 
whom  I  really  have  been  preaching  to  you  to-day  ? 
Oh,  that  from  all  our  souls  He  may  tear  away  every 
falsehood,  every  shelter  of  sin,  no  matter  what  it 
costs  us,  no  matter  how  it  seems  as  if  He  tore  our 
heart  out  with  it.  And  then,  where  these  used  to 
be,  oh,  that  He  may  set  Himself,  knitting  His  life 
into  our  life  by  the  meeting  of  repentance  and  par- 
don, of  grace  and  gratitude,  making  Himself  our 
tower,  hiding  us  safely  forever  and  ever  behind  the 
battlements  of  His  love ! 


VI. 

CHRIST  OUR   LIFE. 

"  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  rise  up  and  walk."— 
Acts  iii.  6. 

Everywhere  power  is  seeking  opportunity,  and 
fulness  is  seeking  need,  throughout  the  universe  of 
God.  The  teeming  hills  send  their  streams  down 
into  the  thirsty  plains.  The  winds  rush  in  to  fill 
the  vacant  fields  of  space.  Knowledge  is  always 
trying  to  widen  its  field  and  fill  with  its  abundance 
some  new  emptiness  of  ignorance.  The  search  is 
mutual  and,  going  on  everywhere,  it  makes  the 
unity  of  the  vast  world.  The  mighty  globe  is 
bound  together  by  these  cords  of  power  running  out 
in  help,  and  need  running  out  in  appeal,  all  over  its 
surface. 

Add  to  this  another  truth, — that  all  the  power  and 
all  the  richness  in  the  world  are  really  one,  are  really 
God, — that,  take  what  form  they  will,  come  through 
what  channels  they  may,  they  all  proceeds  from  one 
great  central  Love  and  Abundance,  which  is  God, — 
and  then  the  unity  is  more  complete  and  more  im- 
pressive. Then  the  study  of  the  endless  variety  of 
the  channels  through  which  the  power  and  supply 
of  God  flow  into  needy  places  becomes  supremely 

99 


lOO  CHRIST   OUR   LIFE 

interesting.  The  schoolmasteris  teaching  his  scholar 
in  the  school.  The  philanthropist  is  freeing  the 
slave  out  of  his  bondage.  The  father  is  feeding  the 
children  at  his  table.  The  artist  is  painting  his  pic- 
ture on  the  wall.  The  farmer  is  turning  the  forest 
to  a  fruitful  field.  The  merchant  is  making  the 
world  the  master  of  its  wealth.  How  various  are 
the  activities  !  How  the  earth  quivers  and  sparkles 
with  their  abundance  and  their  difference!  But  if 
we  believe  and  if  we  say  that  they  all  come  from 
God,  that,  in  a  sense,  they  all  are  God  uttering  and 
giving  Himself  in  many  ways,  through  many  chan- 
nels, is  not  the  sight  then  far  more  wonderful  and 
beautiful  ?  It  has  gained  loftiness  and  unity  with- 
out losing  distinctness  and  variety.  And  each  one 
of  the  channels  through  which  flow  the  power  and 
abundance  of  God,  no  longer  counting  itself  a 
spring  of  original  supply,  must  find  a  profounder 
dignity  and  interest  in  itself  and  catch  infinite  vis- 
ions of  what  may  be  accomplished  and  attained 
through  it.  The  schoolmaster  opens  his  books  and 
says,  "  Here  is  God's  truth."  The  emancipator 
says  to  the  slave,  "  Go  forth  into  God's  freedom." 
The  father  invites  his  children  to  come  and  eat  the 
bread  of  God.  The  artist  feels  thrilling  through 
his  soul  and  his  brush  some  of  God's  beauty.  The 
farmer  and  the  merchant  open  the  field  or  the  ocean 
that  the  bounty  of  God  may  flow  through  them. 
Has  not  each  found  its  nobleness  ?  Is  not  each  full 
of  dignity  ?  May  not  each  think  of  itself  as  incapa- 
ble of  comparison  with  any  other,  because,  whatever 
of  God's  power  any  other  channel  may  bring,  there 


CHRIST   OUR   LIFE  lOI 

is  something  of  God  which  must  come  through  this 
and  this  alone  ? 

I  am  led  to  these  thoughts  as  I  consider  the  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus  when,  after  their  Lord  had  passed 
out  of  their  sight,  they  found  His  power  beginning 
to  use  them  for  its  channels.  Peter  and  John  went 
up  to  the  Temple  and  at  the  gate  they  found  the 
lame  man  lying.  He  called  to  them  for  alms,  and 
though  they  had  no  money  which  they  could  give 
him,  something  began  to  stir  within  them.  How 
they  must  have  wondered  at  themselves!  A 
thought,  a  dream,  a  hope  that  possibly  they  might 
do  something  more  than  drop  a  penny  in  his  out- 
stretched hand, — a  strange,  unreasonable  wish  that 
they  might  actually  lift  him  up  and  set  him  on  his 
feet,  and  give  strength  to  his  poor,  tottering  ankle- 
bones  and  make  him  walk.  How  they  must  have 
wondered  at  themselves!  Deep  feelings  were  stir- 
ring in  their  souls — not  merely  pity  for  the  man's 
misery,  though  that  was  there,  but  other  feelings, 
— a  sense  of  the  sadness  of  weak  limbs  and  defective 
life,  a  longing  for  the  completeness  of  vitality,  a  per- 
ception of  the  mysterious  unity  of  life,  so  that  he 
who  had  most  of  it  ought  to  be  able  to  give  it  to 
those  who  had  least, — all  of  these  emotions  the 
disciples  must  have  found  moving  tumultuously  in 
their  hearts,  and  they  must  have  been  amazed. 
Was  this  some  new-discovered  quality  and  power  in 
themselves,  something  which  had  been  sleeping  un- 
suspected in  them  ever  since  they  were  boys  in 
Capernaum  and  Bethsaida  ?  Why  was  it  that  they 
had  never  dreamed  of  any  such  capacity  before  ? 


102  CHRIST   OUR    LIFE 

And  then  they  said  to  themselves:  "  This  has  come 
to  us  since  we  had  to  do  with  Jesus.  It  is  since  we 
were  His  disciples  that  this  new  power  began  to  stir 
within  us."  And  then  they  must  have  said:  "  It  is 
the  same  which  stirred  in  Him.  Do  you  not  re- 
member how  we  used  to  see  the  same  in  His  face 
which  now  is  in  ourselves  ?  He  too  was  full  of  pity, 
and  loved  life,  and  counted  the  loss  or  the  defect  of 
life  a  woe,  and  tried  to  give  of  His  own  life  to 
others."  They  remembered  all  this  in  Jesus;  and 
then  they  came  back  to  themselves  and  all  was  clear. 
All  this  was  in  them  as  they  belonged  to  Him.  It 
was  in  them  because  it  was  in  Him.  This  desire 
and  power  to  heal  was  His,  not  theirs.  He  was 
the  spring  and  fountain  out  of  which  the  divine 
water  flowed.  They  were  only  the  channels  down 
which  it  poured  to  its  result. 

Everything  must  have  become  credible  to  them 
when  they  understood  that.  They  could  believe  in 
the  power  when  it  was  not  theirs,  but  His.  The 
channel  could  open  itself  freely  when  it  felt  the 
stream  behind  it.  And  so  they  looked  into  the  lame 
man's  face  and  said:  "  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ 
of  Nazareth,  rise  up  and  walk."     And  he  obeyed. 

The  critical  moment  which  came  then  to  the  dis- 
ciples is  always  coming  to  whoever  is  called  to  ex- 
ercise power  in  the  world.  He  who  is  moved  to  do 
something  is  either  a  fountain  and  source  of  power, 
or  else  he  is  a  channel  of  power  through  which 
comes  the  eflficiency  of  God.  Which  is  he  ?  Which 
are  you  ?  According  to  the  answer  to  that  question 
comes  the  whole  nature  and  degree  of   the  man's 


CHRIST   OUR   LIFE  103 

efficiency.  Very  silently,  often  very  unconsciously, 
the  answer  to  that  question  is  being  given.  Every- 
where men,  who  are  doing  the  same  outward  work, 
part  with  each  other  when  the  answer  has  been 
given  one  way  for  one  and  another  for  the  other. 
He  only  enters  on  the  highest  life  who  decides  fully 
for  himself  that  he  is  but  a  channel  of  power,  and 
thenceforth  feels  behind  himself  the  movement  of  the 
infinite  life,  and  does  all  things  in  the  name  of  Christ. 
I  want  to  trace  out  with  you  what  some  of  the 
consequences  in  life  will  be  of  such  a  fundamental 
conviction  with  regard  to  the  source  of  power.  But 
first  I  want  you  to  feel  how  absolutely  universal  is 
the  possibility  of  that  conception.  It  applies  to 
everything.  Whatever  a  man  does,  no  matter  how 
secular  he  chooses  to  call  his  action,  he  may  do  it 
in  the  name  of  Christ.  The  divine  power  working 
behind  him,  using  him  for  the  channel  of  its  utter- 
ance, that  is  what  does  everything.  Not  merely  the 
acts  which  we  call  sacred,  but  everything  is  done  by 
God,  and  the  man  only  opens  his  life  to  God's  efifi- 
ciency.  Not  wickedness,  indeed, — and  there  wick- 
edness  seems  to  appear  as  that  which  it  has  so  often 
been  described  to  be, — negation,  death,  the  ceasing 
of  activity.  It  is  the  ceasing  of  the  activity  of  God, 
interrupted  and  interfered  with  by  the  will  of  man ; 
but  all  good  action,  all  healthy  activity,  however 
secular  it  seems  to  be,  is  really  God,  declaring  Him- 
self and  uttering  his  power  through  the  appropriate 
channel  of  the  life  of  man.  And  the  acting  man 
who  is  aware  of  this,  claims  it  and  declares  it  as  he 
does  His  action,  "  In  the  name  of  Christ." 


104  CHRIST   OUR   LIFE 

I.  I  ask  you  to  notice,  in  the  first  place,  how  such 
a  conception  as  this  estabh'shes  the  nobleness  of  life. 
Our  life  feels  everywhere  the  lack  of  nobleness. 
Very  pathetic,  almost  the  most  pathetic  thing  we 
see,  I  think,  is  the  effort  which  men  make  every- 
where to  compel  life  to  look  noble, — when  in  their 
hearts  they  feel  deep  suspicions  that  it  is  not  noble, 
but  ignoble  all  the  while.  They  make  artificial  mo- 
tives for  it  which  are  not  its  real  ones.  They  make 
fellowships  with  other  men  who  are  living  the  same 
life  as  themselves,  as  if  that  would  look  dignified 
and  precious  in  the  multitude  which  was  base  and 
petty  in  the  single  worker.  They  declaim  about  the 
dignity  of  all  labor.  Or,  if  they  have  to  give  up  in 
despair  the  effort  to  glorify  their  own  vocation,  they 
take  some  avocation,  some  outside  work  which 
seems  to  deal  with  nobler  things,  and  try  in  that  to 
find  some  nobler  color  for  their  lives.  How  many 
men,  pressed  by  the  bondage  of  necessity,  driven 
each  morning  to  their  work,  are  thus  pathetically, 
sometimes  very  beautifully,  trying  to  find  or  feign 
for  their  lives  a  nobleness  which  all  the  time  they 
feel  is  lacking. 

And  now,  what  is  there  which  can  really  do  for 
men  what  they  are  thus  pathetically  trying  to  do  for 
themselves  ?  What  can  take  your  life  and  ennoble 
it,  O  my  friend  ?  If  really  Christ  could  be  felt  be- 
hind it,  and  it  could  all  be  really  an  utterance  of 
Him,  would  not  the  work  be  done  ?  If  you  could 
genuinely  know  that  it  was  His  will  which  was  find- 
ing fulfilment  in  what  you  did,  whether  your  work 
were  the  writing  of  state  papers  or  the  building  of 


CHRIST  OUR   LIFE  I05 

bricks  into  the  wall,  so  that  as  you  shaped  a  new 
sentence  or  spread  a  new  layer  of  mortar  you  could 
say,  "  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth," 
would  not  the  spell  of  sordidness  be  broken,  the  sus- 
picion of  pettiness  be  dissipated  from  your  life  ?  We 
are  dominated  and  confused  by  two  things — the  ac- 
cidents of  our  surroundings  and  the  opinions  of  our 
brethren.  Many  a  soul  really  doing  brave  and  use- 
ful work  struggles  and  writhes  under  the  burden  of 
these  two  oppressions.  They  are  both  gone,  they 
disappear,  they  crush  us  down  no  longer,  just  so  soon 
as  our  work  becomes  Christ's  work  and  not  we  but 
He  is  really  doing  it,  and  we  are  doing  it  only  in 
His  name. 

Be  sure,  O,  my  young  friends,  that  you  are  do- 
ing something  honest,  human,  useful — no  matter 
how  humble  or  useful  it  may  be — and  then  this  no- 
bleness waits  at  your  doors.  Be  doing  something 
of  which  it  is  conceivable  that  a  man  can  say,  "  In 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth  I  do  this 
thing."  A  man  can  say  that  who  drives  sheep  or 
digs  a  ditch.  A  man  cannot  say  that  who  sells  liquor 
to  make  his  fellow  creatures  brutes,  or  who  forces 
his  dollars  out  of  the  crowded  tenement  where  men's 
and  women's  and  children's  souls  are  ruined.  Be 
something,  do  something,  of  which  you  can  say, 
"Christ  does  it!  I  do  it  in  Christ's  name,"  and 
then  nobleness  waits  at  your  door.  Any  moment  it 
may  enter  in,  and  sordidness  and  pettiness  give  way 
at  its  coming. 

This  which  I  am  preaching  is,  I  think,  the  full, 
real  meaning  of  that  phrase  which  fascinates  us  with 


I06  CHRIST   OUR   LIFE 

its  sound,  but  whose  exact  definition  some  of  us 
perhaps  have  found  it  hard  to  give.  "  In  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth  rise  up  and  walk."  It  is 
the  idea  of  all  power  finding  its  source  in  Him.  It 
involves  all  the  various  thoughts  with  regard  to 
the  disciple's  relation  to  his  Lord,  which  come  to 
their  combined  consummation  in  the  complete 
dedication  of  the  disciple's  life,  making  it  altogether 
the  servant  and  expression  of  the  Master's  will. 
Gratitude  is  in  it,  admiration  is  there,  love  which 
desires  communion,  the  sense  of  oneness  of  intrin- 
sic nature, — all  these  press  the  man-life  on  the 
Christ-life  and  make  it  aware  that  its  true  glory  and 
effectiveness  is  in  uttering  Him,  All  this  I  take  to 
be  wrapped  up  in  those  rich  words:  "  In  the  name 
of  Christ." 

2.  And  notice,  in  the  second  place,  how  in  what 
these  words  express  there  lies  the  true  secret  of  the 
unity  of  various  lives.  There  are  two  notions  of 
unity  in  men's  minds.  One  of  them  is  really  the  no- 
tion of  uniformity.  It  has  no  place  for  diversity.  It 
wants  almost  complete  identity  between  the  things 
which  it  compares.  The  other  rejoices  in  diversity, 
and  finds  its  unifying  principle  in  the  common  mo- 
tive or  purpose  out  of  which  an  infinite  diversity  of 
many  actions  may  proceed.  How  vain  the  search 
for  any  unity  but  this!  It  is  the  unity  of  nature. 
The  budding,  bursting  spring  is  full  of  it;  a  thou- 
sand trees  all  different  from  one  another  are  all  one 
in  the  oneness  of  the  great  life-power  which  throbs 
and  pulsates  in  them  all.  And  souls  the  most  un- 
like, most  widely  separated  from  each  other,  are  one 


CHRIST   OUR   LIFE  I07 

in  Christ,  Christ  is  their  principle  of  unity.  The 
thinker  pondering  deep  problems,  the  workman 
struggling  with  the  obstinacy  of  material,  the  wor- 
shipper lost  in  his  adoration,  the  men  of  all  centu- 
ries, the  men  of  all  lands, — they  are  all  one,  if  all 
their  lives  are  utterances  of  the  same  Christ.  It 
seems  to  me  to  be  beautiful,  the  way  in  which  each 
new  Christian  strikes  into  this  unity  and  becomes  a 
part  of  it  immediately,  A  man  has  been  living  by 
himself,  seeming  to  find  all  his  sources  of  activity  in 
his  own  life.  By  and  by  the  change  comes  and  he 
is  Christ's,  The  pulse  of  universal  Christian  life  be- 
gins to  beat  through  him.  Now  he  is  one  with  all 
men  who,  anywhere,  are  doing  anything  by  Christ 
for  Christ!  How  he  lays  hold  of  and  comprehends 
the  ages!  All  the  past  is  his;  he  knows  what  men 
were  doing  in  the  days  of  Abraham  and  David.  All 
the  future  is  his ;  he  knows  what  men  will  be  doing  in 
the  millennium, — not  the  forms  of  their  activity,  but 
its  heart  and  soul,  its  meaning  and  its  spiritual  ex- 
perience. All  this  he  knows  the  moment  that  he  has 
begun  to  do  his  special  work  "  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  of  Nazareth,"  He  is  set  into  the  living  sys- 
tem. The  star  is  taken  up  by  the  chorus  of  the  stars 
and  joins  their  music.  Still  the  man  goes  on  at  his 
little  work, — adding  up  figures,  selling  goods,  driving 
his  little  machine, — but  he  is  one  with  the  greatest; 
he  is  one  with  the  least,  O,  that  the  children 
might  learn  that,  and  feel  their  lives  from  the  be- 
ginning set  into  the  unity  of  that  utterance  of  Clirist 
which  is  the  complete  activity  of  the  world!  How 
much  conceit  amonfj  those  who  thought  themselves 


I08  CHRIST   OUR   LIFE 

great,  how  much  complaint  among  those  who 
thought  themselves  little,  such  a  conception  of  life 
would  save! 

3.  It  is  time  for  me  to  touch  another  question 
which  may  have  been  suggested  to  you  as  I  have 
spoken.  "  What  effect,"  you  will  ask,  "  will  this 
absorption  into  Christ  have  upon  that  development 
of  personal  distinctness,  that  character,  that  indi- 
viduality which  all  men  who  are  anything  desire  to 
possess  ?  To  do  everything,  to  be  everything,  in 
Christ's  name — will  not  that  blur  everything  into  in- 
distinctness and  keep  your  life,  my  life,  from  stand- 
ing out  vigorous  and  clear?  Nay,  in  my  own  name 
let  me  live  my  life  and  do  my  work!  " 

But  surely  this  implies  a  narrow  and  crude 
thought  of  individuality.  What  is  the  Individual  ? 
A  being  distinct  not  only  in  himself,  but  in  all  his 
peculiar  relations  to  the  Infinite  and  Total  Being.  It 
is  in  the  relation  to  that  mass  of  being  upon  which 
every  individual  being  rests,  and  to  which  it  belongs, 
that  individuality  asserts  itself.  Wycliffe,  Howard, 
Napoleon,  each  of  them  is  a  distinct,  distinguisha- 
ble figure  among  men.  But  how  ?  By  the  way  in 
which  he  manifests  our  universal  human  nature,  and 
by  the  effects  which  he  produces  on  it.  Take  any 
one  of  them  out  of  all  connection  with  the  universal 
human  life,  and  while,  no  doubt,  his  distinctive 
personality  would  still  be  there,  it  would  be  a 
crippled,  ineffective  thing.  It  would  find  no  op- 
portunity either  of  exhibition  or  of  education.  Put 
Wycliffe,  or  Howard,  or  Napoleon  into  his  true 
place,  and  he  shines  with  his  own  radiance  and  does 


CHRIST   OUR   LIFE  IO9 

his  own  work  because  of  his  true  own  place  in  which 
he  stands.  You  see  to  what  this  tends, — that  the 
true  and  natural  relations  of  a  human  life  bring  out 
and  strengthen  and  do  not  destroy  or  hide  its  indi- 
viduality. You  put  a  solitary  man  into  a  family, 
or  into  a  warm  friendship,  and  how  his  personality 
£omes  out!  How  much  more  of  a  man,  how  much 
more  of  this  man  which  God  meant  for  him  to  be, 
he  is! 

Now,  Christ  is  the  most  natural  home  of  man. 
He  is  the  human  manifestation  of  Divinity.  Where 
then  as  in  Him  shall  man  naturally  implant  himself 
and  be  at  home  ?  And  because  the  implanting  of 
man  in  Christ  is  natural,  and  not  unnatural,  there- 
fore the  individuality  of  him  who  is  set  in  Christ  is 
developed  and  not  destroyed,  and  the  Christian  be- 
comes more  and  not  less  himself  the  more  truly  and 
devotedly  he  is  a  Christian. 

And  the  true  Bible  figure  of  the  Church  is  also 
the  home.  It  is  the  family  of  God.  And  so,  while 
it  keeps  the  great  sense  of  comprehensive  unity,  it 
will  never  blur  or  stifle  the  freedom  and  variety  and 
spontaneousness  of  individual  life. 

Indeed,  all  true  conception  of  originality  and  in- 
dividuality must  include  the  truth  of  the  necessary 
belonging  of  the  individual  in  the  great  whole.  No 
self  is  its  whole  self  which  is  itself  alone.  Part  of 
the  selfhood  of  everything  is  its  share  in  the  com- 
plete being  of  which  it  is  a  part.  Will  you  take  the 
man  and  uproot  him  from  all  his  belongings  ?  Take 
him  out  of  his  fatherhood,  his  business,  his  scholar- 
ship, his  citizenship,  his  church,  and  then  tell  me, 


no  CHRIST   OUR   LIFE 

have  you  got  him  in  his  true  personality  ?  Has  not 
his  personality  disappeared  with  all  those  separa- 
tions ?  The  time  may  come  when,  loosing  himself 
from  all  these  associations,  leaving  them  behind  as 
outgrown  things,  the  man's  soul,  pure  and  personal, 
shall  soar  away  to  some  existence  where  they  can 
have  no  place.  But  who  can  say  into  what  new 
sceneries  and  societies  of  a  celestial  city,  and  a  per- 
fected human  family,  and  a  triumphant  church  that 
freed  soul  shall  unite  itself,  claiming  anew  its  per- 
sonality in  its  associations  ?  And,  however  that 
may  be,  it  certainly  will  come  to  pass  that  there  the 
soul  will  fix  itself  in  God,  and  realize  its  individu- 
ality and  know  itself  in  Him. 

If  this  be  true,  then  men  will  become  not  less, 
but  more  themselves  as  they  all  feel  behind  their 
lives  the  Power  of  Jesus,  and  do  all  things  in  His 
name.  It  will  be  like  the  pouring  of  the  sunlight  on 
the  earth,  giving  to  everything  a  radiance  which 
is  the  sun's  and  yet  is  the  thing's  own.  It  will  be 
like  the  pouring  of  the  brook  down  the  dry  channel, 
making  each  pebble  shine  with  its  true  color.  So 
acts  burst  into  radiance  when  the  great  glory  burns 
behind  them.  You  are  doing  things  with  lower  mo- 
tives, and  so  with  lower  powers  (for  the  motives  of 
deeds  are  the  powers  of  deeds);  and  this  change 
comes,  the  great  love  of  Christ  takes  possession  of 
you,  you  love  Him  with  the  overwhelming  gratitude 
which  acknowledges  His  love.  Your  life  presses  it- 
self in  and  occupies  His  life.  His  power  fills  you. 
"  Not  I  live,  but  Christ,"  you  cry,  in  Paul's  great 
words.    And  then  every  act  is  yours  with  wonderful 


CHRIST   OUR   LIFE  III 

and  new  distinctness.  You  and  Christ  are  the  unit 
of  this  new,  strange  life.  Strange  life?  Yes,  but  only 
strange  as  the  absolutely  natural  is  strange  when  it 
strikes  into  the  midst  of  the  unnatural  which  has 
possessed  the  world ;  only  strange  as  the  whole  is 
strange  when,  surging  up  from  the  depths,  it  takes 
possession  of  and  overwhelms  and  harmonizes  the 
parts!  In  that  strange  life  each  act,  each  thought, 
each  word,  flashes  with  light,  glows  with  color, 
quivers  with  power,  distinctive  and  unique,  as  it 
is  done,  or  thought,  or  spoken  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

What  shall  we  say  of  our  poor,  colorless  religion? 
What  shall  we  think  of  our  Church,  which  often 
seems  to  swamp  and  drown  instead  of  bringing  out 
lustrously  the  characters  of  those  who  live  in  it  ? 
What  can  we  think  except  that  it  has  not  really 
filled  itself  with  its  Master's  power  ?  It  does  things 
which  He  could  never  do.  It  turns  away  from  tasks 
which  His  soul  longs  for.  It  is  not  because  they 
have  given  themselves  to  Him,  but  because  they 
have  given  themselves  to  Him  so  partially,  so  fee- 
bly, that  the  members  of  His  Church  seem  often  to 
have  lost  instead  of  gaining  personal  distinctness 
and  the  full  power  of  their  own  true  life.  You  must 
go  deeper  into  the  stream  which  now  only  the  tip 
of  your  foot  is  touching.  You  must  be  more  of  a 
Christian,  not  less.  You  must  give  yourself  up 
heart  and  soul  to  Christ,  that  Christ  may  make  you 
all  yourself.  Has  not  He  Himself  told  the  story  ? 
You  must  lose  your  life  utterly  in  Him  that  you 
may  find  it. 


112  CHRIST  OUR   LIFE 

Let  me  say  only  one  thing  more.  The  defect  in 
a  man's  life  is  double.  It  is  in  the  things  he  does 
not  do,  and  it  is  in  the  things  he  does  do.  I  have 
been  thinking  mostly  about  the  things  which  a  man 
does  not  do,  and  of  how  his  activity  would  be  stim- 
ulated if  he  felt  behind  all  his  life  the  Power  of 
Christ.  But  consider  the  other  side.  Think  how 
the  soul  which  lived  by  Christ  would  become  incapa- 
ble of  many  an  action  which,  if  he  thought  of  his 
life  as  having  no  deeper  sources  than  himself,  he 
might  freely  do.  He  thinks  of  himself  as  an  ut- 
terance of  Christ.  What  Christ  is  He  will  be — 
nothing  else.  What  Christ  does  He  will  do — nothing 
else.  "  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth" 
shall  be  the  stamp  which  he  will  set  on  every  action. 
Is  not  the  range  of  his  action  limited  at  once  ?  He 
can  do  nothing  which  will  not  hold  that  seal,  no- 
thing over  which  those  words  cannot  be  said.  He 
raises  his  arm  in  passion  to  strike  some  defenceless 
creature  a  cruel  and  vindictive  blow.  "  In  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,"  he  says,  and  his  arm 
falls  powerless.  He  cannot  strike.  He  sets  out  on 
some  career  of  reputable  deceit.  He  has  his  ap- 
proved lie  all  ready  on  his  lips,  but  before  he  utters 
it,  he  says,  "  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Naza- 
reth," and  the  lie  is  as  impossible  for  him  as  for 
Christ  Himself.  Ah,  how  everywhere  it  is  true  that 
higher  power  means  also  more  restraint !  To  be  able 
to  do  one  thing  means  always  not  to  be  able  to  do 
something  else.  Let  any  man  here  in  society  accept 
Christ's  power  as  his  moving  principle,  and  what 
then  ?     A  hundred  old  familiar  doors  must  close. 


CHRIST   OUR   LIFE  II3 

But  one  great  door  opens,  and  through  that  he  goes 
in  to  another  life. 

Here,  then,  my  friends,  is  the  whole  doctrine 
which  I  wished  to  preach.  It  is  the  great  redemp- 
tion from  a  blank,  narrow,  and  lonely  thought  of 
life,  if  there  is  behind  us  a  vast  Power  of  life  by 
which  we  live  and  in  whose  name  all  that  we  do  is 
done.  Moses  stands  by  the  rock,  about  to  smite  it 
and  bid  the  water  flow.  All  God's  omnipotence  is 
behind  him.  All  the  love  and  care,  all  the  infinite 
nature  of  God  is  waiting  to  utter  itself  through  this 
poor  Hebrew  who  stands,  rod  in  hand,  before  the 
mountain.  What  opportunity  there  is  for  him  to 
glorify  his  life!  How  he  may  become  like  a  very 
right  arm  of  the  Almighty!  If  he  will  only  lift  up 
his  voice  and  cry,  "  In  the  name  of  God,  let  the 
water  come  for  the  thirsty  people!"  But  listen. 
What  is  it  that  he  says?  "  Hear  now,  ye  rebels! 
must  /bring  you  water  out  of  this  rock  ?"  How 
the  man  shrinks  and  shrivels  as  we  look  at  him  and 
hear  him  speak!  Just  he,  and  nothing  more!  his 
little,  narrow  personality.  Just  Moses.  Nay,  not 
Moses!  for  the  true  Moses  is  Moses  full  of  God,  and 
this  Moses  who  speaks  has  cast  God  away,  and  so 
he  is  not  really  his  whole  self.  No  wonder  that  that 
losing  of  his  chance  to  be  his  best  was  the  beginning 
of  his  death!  We  all  begin  to  die  when  we  let  go 
the  chance  to  live  our  fullest  life. 

May  God  help  us  to  give  ourselves  to  Christ,  who, 
as  St.  Paul  says,  "  is  our  life,"  so  that  He  may  flow 
freely  forth  through  us.  May  we  do  all  things  "  in 
His  name."     May  we  do  nothing  which  we  cannot 

8 


114  CHRIST   OUR  LIFE 

do  "  in  His  name."  So  may  some  of  His  work  get 
done  through  us,  and  we,  in  doing  it,  grow  strong 
and  pure  and  unselfish  and  like  Him,  becoming  so 
our  own  true  selves. 


VII. 

MY   BROTHER'S    KEEPER. 

"  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?" — Genesis  iv.  g. 

The  first  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  still 
keep  their  hold  on  human  life.  Indeed,  it  some- 
times seems  as  if  the  difficult  and  puzzling  questions 
which  have  been  raised  concerning  them  had  tight- 
ened that  hold  instead  of  loosening  it.  Many  men 
at  least  have  come  to  see  that,  whatever  may  be 
the  fact  with  regard  to  the  historical  nature  of  the 
record  which  is  written  there,  the  narrative  has  a 
spiritual  truth  as  a  description  of  man's  perpetual 
experience,  which  is  most  valuable  and  never  can 
lose  its  power.  Much  in  those  chapters  may  per- 
plex  us,  but  yet  its  pictures  never  fade  out  of  our 
sight  nor  lose  their  meaning  for  our  consciences. 

The  new-made  garden  with  its  freshness  of  spark- 
ling stream  and  waving  tree  and  bounteous  grass ;  the 
man,  first  alone  and  then  with  his  life  richeneJ  and 
deepened  by  the  woman's  presence  at  his  side;  the 
mystic  catastrophe  of  the  disobedient  eating  of  the 
apple;  the  gateway  with  the  angels  and  the  flashing, 
flaming  sword  and  the  poor  man  and  woman  terri- 
fied and  desolate  outside;  then  the  new  poetry  and 
pathos  that  came  into  the  world  with  the  first  family 

115 


ii6  MY  brother's  keeper 

life;  the  birth  of  the  first  children,  the  first  boys  the 
world  had  ever  seen ;  and  then,  all  of  a  sudden, 
bursting  like  a  thunderbolt  out  of  the  sky,  hatred 
and  murder!  How  that  picture  has  fastened  itself  in 
men's  hearts!  The  dreadful,  forsaken  plain  where 
one  brother  lies  dead  beside  the  smouldering  altar, 
while  the  other  brother  wanders  far  away  with  the 
irrevocable  deed  burning  at  his  soul,  trying  in  such 
hopeless  despair  to  make  himself  believe  that  he  is 
not  the  wretch  he  knows  himself  to  be,  answering 
the  voice  of  God  which  speaks  to  him  from  without 
and  from  within  with  this  angry  and  helpless  and 
passionate  rejection  of  responsibility,  "  Am  I  my 
brother's  keeper  ?  " 

I  take  this  last  picture  out  of  the  old  Book  of 
Genesis  to-day.  Very  different  indeed  is  this  wild 
son  of  Adam,  roaming  desperate  through  the  pri- 
meval earth,  from  the  decent  and  reputable  citizen  of 
our  modern  world  on  whose  lips  to-day  we  can  al- 
most hear  the  same  question  which  came  forth  from 
the  mouth  of  Cain.  But  the  words  are  the  same. 
To-day  the  same  disclaimer  of  responsibility  shows 
how  disordered  is  our  world.  Still  men  who  ought 
to  know  and  care  how  it  is  faring  with  their  brother- 
men  refuse  to  know,  refuse  to  care.  We  may  leave 
Cain  in  his  far-away  remoteness  and,  turning  to  our 
own  present  days,  ask  ourselves  the  meaning  of 
man's  indifference  to  his  fellow-man,  ask  what  the 
meaning  is  of  that  which  so  many  men  say  in  their 
hearts  when  they  are  bidden  to  hold  themselves  re- 
sponsible for  the  lives  of  other  men,  "  Am  I  my 
brother's  keeper  ? " 


MY    brother's   keeper  II7 

And,  first  of  all,  I  think,  we  ought  to  remember 
how  difficult  it  always  is  for  men  to  imagine  them- 
selves into  a  way  of  life  of  which  they  have  had  no 
experience  or  trial,  and  not  to  let  that  difificulty  im- 
pose on  us.  It  may  be  the  very  way  of  life  for 
which  they  were  made.  The  life  which  they  are  liv- 
ing may  be  most  imperfect  and  unnatural,  but  when 
you  say  to  one  of  them,  "  Come  here!  Be  this!" 
he  turns  upon  you  in  unfeigned  surprise.  The 
■whole  thing  looks  impossible.  You  say  to  the  idler, 
"  Come,  be  a  scholar.  Taste  the  fascination  of  great 
books  ' ' ;  and  he  replies,  ' '  I  cannot.  Other  men  were 
made  to  study,  but  not  I."  You  say  to  the  selfish 
man,  "Come,  here  is  need,  relieve  it  "  ;  and  he  looks 
you  in  the  face  as  if  you  had  asked  him  to  climb  to 
the  stars.  You  say  to  the  undevout  man,  "  Come, 
be  religious.  Come,  love  and  worship  God";  and 
he  replies,  "  You  do  not  know  me.  You  are  taking 
me  for  another  kind  of  man.  It  is  as  if  you  asked 
an  eagle  to  swim  for  you  or  a  fish  to  sing."  All  the 
time,  in  each  man  lies  sleeping  the  power  whose 
possession  he  denies,  and  in  the  use  of  which  alone 
can  he  attain  to  his  true  life.  Do  we  not  come  to 
feel  how  almost  absolutely  worthless  are  men's  de- 
scriptions of  their  own  impossibilities  ?  Whatever 
is  of  the  general  substance  of  noble  humanity,  every 
man  may  be  in  his  degree.  For  a  man  to  stand  up 
and  say,"  I  cannot  learn";  "  I  cannot  be  gener- 
ous "  ;  "  I  cannot  be  devout, ' '  proves  only  how  little 
he  knows  himself. 

Once,  I  think,  I  used  to  be  imposed  on  by  such 
statements.     Once,  when  a  man  said  any  of  these 


ii8  MY  brother's  keeper 

things  about  himself,  it  seemed  as  if  it  might  be 
true,  as  if  here  might  be  a  man  in  whom  this  one 
capacity  of  manhood  had  been  left  out;  but  so  con- 
stantly the  flowers  have  broken  out  of  such  unlikely 
soils,  so  often  the  darkest  heavens  have  burst  forth 
in  unexpected  stars,  that  it  has  come  to  seem  as  if 
no  man's  assertion  of  his  own  deficiency  were  trust- 
worthy. "  God  knew  things  of  him  that  he  did  not 
know  of  himself,"  we  say  when  some  new  life  opens 
upon  a  man  who  thought  he  had  exhausted  his  ca- 
pacity of  living. 

Let  us  be  taught  by  such  sights.  Let  us  apply  to 
ourselves  the  lesson  that  they  teach.  Let  us  beware 
of  drawing  hard  and  fast  the  line  of  our  own  limita- 
tions. Trust  the  impulsive  leap  of  heart  which  tells 
you,  when  you  read  the  life  of  Agassiz  or  of  Living- 
stone, that  you  too  might  be  a  devotee  of  science  or 
an  enthusiastic  missionary.  Expect  surprises  out  of 
the  bosom  of  a  life  which  God  made,  and  which  you 
whom  He  has  set  to  live  in  it  only  half  realize, — as 
a  tenant  who  came  but  yesterday  into  a  palace  only 
half  knows  the  mystery  and  richness  of  the  great 
house  where  he  has  been  sent  to  live. 

Now  all  of  this  applies,  I  think,  exactly  to  the  sub- 
ject of  which  I  want  to  speak  to  you.  Here  comes 
the  demand  that  every  man  should  be  the  keeper  of 
his  brother-man.  That  means,  that  whatever  may  be 
the  care  which  a  man  takes  of  his  own  life,  however  he 
watches  it  and  tends  it,  he  has  not  done  his  duty,  he 
has  not  filled  out  his  existence,  unless  he  also  has,  just 
as  far  as  he  possesses  the  ability  and  chance,  watciied 
and  protected  and  helped  the  lives  of  other  people. 


MY    brother's   keeper 


119 


Now  what  shall  we  say  of  that  demand?  It  seems 
to  me  that  until  we  think  carefully  about  it,  we  have 
no  idea  of  what  multitudes  of  people  there  are  to 
whom  such  a  demand,  made  definitely  of  them,  must 
and  does  seem  absolutely  preposterous  and  absurd. 
They  may  feel  that  somebody  ought  to  do  it,  that 
there  are  people  for  whom  it  is  possible  and  alto- 
gether right  that  they  should  go  burdened  with  the 
care  for  others,  just  as  there  are  people  to  dig  the 
ditches  and  to  build  the  fences,  but  for  them  it  is 
totally  out  of  the  question,  as  totally  unreasonable 
as  to  ask  them  to  take  the  shovel  in  their  hands. 

Meet  one  of  our  gilded  youth  upon  the  street, 
one  of  those  boys  who  was  born  and  has  grown  up 
in  luxury,  and  has  never  had  any  self-control  asked 
of  him  except  that  he  should  not  complain  of  the 
monotony  of  luxury  in  which  he  lived.  Stop  him 
an  instant  and  point  him  to  a  poor,  wretched  crip- 
ple toiling  along  under  a  heavy  burden,  with  pov- 
erty in  every  line  of  his  poor,  haggard  face.  Ask 
your  bright,  glittering  young  friend  what  it  means 
that  that  poor  creature  is  so  poor,  and  why  he 
should  not  in  some  way  help  him  ?  and  there  is 
something  infinitely  sad  and  touching  in  the  trans- 
parent honesty  with  which  he  looks  you  in  the  face 
and  tells  you  that  it  is  no  affair  of  his.  Perhaps  he 
does  remember  that  somewhere  there  is  a  charity 
bureau  to  which  the  poor  creature  might  be  sent. 
Perhaps  he  vaguely  fumbles  in  his  brain  to  find  some 
remnants  of  what  he  distantly  remembers  to  have 
been  taught  in  college  about  the  political  economy  of 
pauperism;  but  that  it  is  his  business  to  undertake 


I20  MY  brother's  KEEPER 

personally,  with  thought  and  care,  the  relief  of 
that  poor  sufferer! — you  might  as  well  tell  him  that 
it  is  his  place  to  go  and  find  the  sources  of  the 
Nile. 

Stand  at  the  door  of  a  fashionable  club-house  and 
call  for  recruits,  earnest  and  self-sacrificing,  in  the 
work  of  political  reform,  or  the  freeing  of  slaves,  or 
the  repressing  of  intemperance, — why!  I  can  hear 
even  now,  as  I  stand  here,  the  empty,  noisy  laugh- 
ter that  comes  back  in  answer  to  your  summons. 
Nay,  lift  up  your  voice  in  a  much  nobler  place.  Cry 
aloud  in  the  halls  of  learning,  talk  to  the  student  at 
his  desk  and  tell  him  how  hosts  of  his  fellow-men 
want  the  crumbs  from  his  table,  want  the  inspira- 
tion of  his  teaching  presence;  and  what  a  blank  un- 
consciousness is  in  his  eye  as  he  turns  back  to  his 
problem,  wondering  how  any  man  could  dream  that 
he  ought  to  even  feel,  in  his  sublime  search  for  ab- 
solute truth,  the  base  and  elementary  needs  of  this 
ignorant  multitude,  whose  very  crude  craving  after 
knowledge  shows  how  little  they  really  know  of  what 
learning  is. 

Do  you  recognize  these  people  whom  I  thus  de- 
scribe ?  Are  they  not  real  ?  Are  they  not  common  ? 
Are  they  not  specimens  of  many  others?  And  what 
does  the  existence  of  such  people  mean  ?  Does  it 
not  mean  that  there  are  in  the  world  very  many  in- 
telligent people  who  do  not  in  the  least  believe  that 
they  have  any  responsibility  for  other  people  ? 
Somebody  has,  they  think.  There  are  the  ministers. 
There  are  the  managers  of  philanthropic  institu- 
tions.   There  is  the  "benevolent  public."    But  they 


MY   brother's   keeper  121 

have  no  such  responsibility.     They  are    nobody's 
keepers  but  their  own. 

Such  a  condition  of  things,  such  a  wide-spread 
conception  of  Hfe  which  robs  the  world  of  so  much 
strength  and  helpfulness,  is  certainly  most  signifi- 
cant and  demands  our  thoughtful  study.  And  the 
first  thought  which  it  suggests  is  this:  that  men 
have  been  too  apt  to  think  of  helpfulness  to  their 
brother-men  as  an  accidental  privilege  or  an  excep- 
tional duty  of  human  life,  and  not  as  a  true  and  es- 
sential part  of  humanity,  without  whose  presence 
humanity  is  not  complete.  See  what  I  mean.  A 
beautiful  voice  is  an  exceptional  privilege  of  a  few 
extraordinary  people  among  mankind.  He  who  finds 
it  in  himself  thinks  of  it,  according  as  he  is  devout 
or  undevout,  as  a  gracious  gift  of  God  or  as  a  happy 
accident.  In  either  case  it  is  a  personal  and  special 
thing.  It  does  not  belong  to  this  man  because  he 
is  a  man,  in  very  virtue  of  his  manhood.  Other 
men  are  destitute  of  it,  and  cannot  sing  any  more 
than  the  stone  upon  the  hillside,  and  yet  they  are 
as  truly  men  as  he.  But  a  man  has  two  arms,  and 
the  feeling  about  them  is  immediately  and  intrinsi- 
cally different.  They  are  not  the  exception.  They 
are  the  constant  human  rule.  It  is  not  a  privilege 
to  have  them.  The  man  who  is  without  them,  the 
man  who  has  one  arm  or  none, — he  is  the  exception. 
He  is,  just  in  that  degree,  just  to  that  extent,  de- 
ficient in  his  humanity.  He  is  not  a  total  man;  he 
is  a  fragment  or  a  monster.  The  loss  may  have 
come  nobly,  by  some  great  self-exposure  which  it 
was  glorious  for  him  to  make ;  nevertheless,  he  has 


122  MY    BROTHER  S   KEEPER 

suffered  a  detraction  from  the  completeness  of  his 
humanity,  and  is  partly  not  a  man. 

Here,  then,  there  are  two  kinds  or  classes  of  pos- 
sessions, and  you  see  the  difference  between  them. 
One  of  them  is  a  peculiar  privilege.  The  other  is  a 
test  and  proof-mark  of  humanity.  Not  to  have  the 
beautiful  voice  is  to  lack  a  lovely  ornament  and  dec- 
oration of  the  life;  not  to  have  two  arms  is  to  lack 
a  portion  of  the  life  itself. 

And  now  is  it  not  true  that  a  large  part  of  the 
trouble,  in  this  matter  of  men's  helpfulness  to  their 
fellow-men,  has  come  from  the  fact  that  helpfulness 
to  brother-man  has  been  put  into  the  wrong  class  ? 
It  has  seemed  to  be  like  the  beautiful  voice,  a 
special,  splendid  privilege  and  gift ;  not  like  the  two 
arms,  a  test  and  proof-mark  of  humanity.  The  man 
who  had  it  has  seemed  to  be  something  more,  in- 
stead of  the  man  who  did  not  have  it  seeming  some- 
thing less  than  man.  Often  and  often  the  man  who 
never  dreamed  of  anything  for  himself  except  a  sel- 
fish life  has  gazed  with  honest  admiration  on  the 
men  who  could  not  rest  until  their  brethren's  need 
had  been  relieved ;  but  it  has  been  as  the  snake 
might  watch  the  eagle  soaring  in  the  sky,  or  as  you 
and  I  might  listen  to  the  singing  of  an  angel, — never 
stirred  either  to  shame  or  emulation  by  it,  because 
it  all  came  by  a  power  which  we  did  not  possess. 

Suppose  all  that  were  altered.  Suppose  you  and 
I  really  knew  that  in  us,  too,  as  a  true  part  of  our 
humanity,  there  was  the  angelic  power  of  song; 
suppose  the  selfish  man  really  believed  that  for  him 
to  be  selfish  was  as  true  a  loss  of  the  completeness 


MY   brother's    keeper  I23 

of  his  manhood  as  it  would  be  for  him  to  be  lame  or 
dumb;  would  not  the  whole  aspect  of  the  case  be 
different  ?  Would  not  the  rule  and  the  exception 
have  changed  places  ?  Now,  not  the  wonder  and 
the  praises  and  the  garlands  for  the  rare  servant  of 
his  brethren,  but  the  pity  and  the  shame  and  the 
sense  of  loss  for  him  who  dared  to  live  for  himself 
alone,  and  leave  his  brethren  unhelped.  Now,  not 
the  mean  and  stingy  question,  "Why?"  but  the 
generous  demand,  "  Why  not  ? " 

Sometimes,  when  we  think  how  some  one  change 
would  regenerate  the  world,  we  grow  buoyant  with 
hope,  for  it  seems  as  if  that  one  change  might  come 
to-day.  But  then,  when  we  think  how  vast  that  one 
change  is  our  hearts  almost  despair,  for  it  seems 
hopeless.  But  this  change  is  not  hopeless.  That 
men  should  come  some  day  actually  and  practically 
to  believe  and  feel  that  a  man  who  takes  none  of  the 
responsibility  of  other  men's  lives  upon  himself  is  a 
fragment  of  a  man — that  is  not  hopeless.  There  are 
some  men,  and  not  a  few,  who  believe  and  feel  that 
to-day,  and  who  are  trying  to  complete  themselves, 
—  not  to  win  an  extra-human  ornament  and  grace, 
but  to  complete  their  human  selves  in  sympathy 
and  brother-help.  I  think  that  very  often,  in  the 
most  selfish  man,  there  must  sometimes  come,  with 
the  recognition  of  his  uselessness,  a  blind  thrill  of 
dimly  realized  imperfection,  as  sometimes  the  man 
born  without  arms  must  feel  the  arms  to  which  he 
has  a  human  right  trembling  and  craving  life  in  his 
poor,  maimed  shoulders.  And  I  believe  that  the 
constant  impossibility  of  thinking  of  God  without 


124  MY   brother's   keeper 

thinking  also  of  the  necessity  of  care  for  man  as  a 
true  part  of  His  nature,  does  keep  alive  in  some  de- 
gree the  sense,  and  does  prepare  for  the  time  when 
the  sense  shall  become  universal,  that  man  without 
the  acceptance  of  responsibility  for  his  brethren  is 
only  a  fragment  of  a  man. 

How  we  always  come  back  to  the  same  truth! 
Man  must  think  better  of  himself,  not  worse, — must 
see  the  essential  glory  of  his  human  nature  to  be 
more  and  not  less  rich  and  splendid  than  he  sees  it 
now,  before  he  can  be  his  best. 

It  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  great  indications 
of  the  fact  that  helpfulness  of  man  to  man  is  a  true 
part  of  our  human  nature,  and  not  a  mere  addition  to 
it,  appears  in  our  constant  experience  of  the  impos- 
sibility of  avoiding  some  sort  of  influence  upon  our 
brethren.  "  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?  "  you  say, 
when  some  one  points  out  to  you  that  another  man 
beside  you  is  going  to  his  ruin,  and  begs  you  to 
save  him, — "  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ? "  you  re- 
ply and  turn  away  in  scorn.  There  might  be  some 
small  show  of  reason  in  it  if  you  could  turn  away  en- 
tirely, if  it  were  possible  for  you  to  shut  a  wall 
around  your  life  so  that  it  could  have  no  possible 
influence  on  his.  But  when  you  try  it,  you  find  how 
impossible  that  is.  Little  by  little  you  learn  that 
you  must  have  something  to  do  with  your  brother, 
with  your  brethren. 

The  sense  of  that,  when  it  has  once  taken  posses- 
sion of  a  man,  makes  life  so  solemn !  There  is  noth- 
ing that  you  can  do  which  does  not  make  it  either 
harder  or  easier  for  other  men  to  live,  and  to  live 


MY   brother's   keeper  12$ 

well.  The  little  circle  which  your  eye  can  trace  is 
such  a  small  part  of  your  influence!  Deeds  which 
you  seem  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  are  really  the 
results  of  the  things  you  have  done  and  been. 

Here  is  a  poor  suicide,  who,  in  a  frantic  moment 
in  some  wretched  room  to-day,  does  that  most  cow- 
ardly and  miserable  sin,  and  with  the  pistol  or  the 
poison  flees  from  the  post  where  God  had  put  him. 
You  never  saw  the  man.  He  never  heard  of  you. 
Have  you  anything  to  do  with  his  miserable  dying  ? 
If  you  have  cheapened  life;  if  you  by  sordidness 
and  frivolity  have  made  it  seem  a  poor  instead  of  a 
noble  thing  to  live;  if  you  have  consistently  given 
to  life  the  look  of  a  luxury  to  be  kept  as  long  as  it 
is  pleasant,  and  to  be  flung  away  the  minute  it  be- 
comes a  burden,  instead  of  a  duty  to  be  done  at  any 
cost,  with  any  pains,  till  it  is  finished;  if  this  has 
been  the  meaning  of  your  life  in  the  community 
and  in  the  world,  then  you  most  certainly  have 
something  to  do  with  that  poor  wretch's  death. 
You  helped  to  kill  that  suicide. 

Here  is  this  poor  soul  in  its  trouble  feeling  about 
for  God,  unable  to  find  Him,  almost  driven  to  de- 
spair for  lack  of  faith.  Have  you  anything  to  do 
with  that  ?  How  can  you  have  ?  You  never  temp- 
ted or  disturbed  his  faith.  You  never  talked  scep- 
ticism to  him.  You  never  told  him  what  a  childish 
superstition  you  thought  it  to  believe  in  God.  But 
what  then  ?  If  you  have  lessened  and  lowered  the 
world's  faith  by  your  base  worldliness  or  wanton 
refusal  to  acknowledge  spiritual  forces  in  your  own 
life,  then  you  have  poisoned    the   air   which   this 


126  MY   brother's   KEEPER 

poor  soul  has  breathed,  and  it  is  dying  of  your 
poison. 

Here  is  a  social  tragedy, — one  of  those  awful 
crashes  which  come  to  a  household  when  purity, 
which  is  the  soul  of  household  strength,  is  gone, 
and  the  poor  wretched  body  it  has  left  goes  all  to 
pieces  at  the  first  temptation.  Vou  never  played  the 
tempter  there.  You  never  struck  the  pillars  of  that 
house  with  the  fire  of  your  lustful  passion.  No,  but 
you  have  made  the  atmosphere  in  the  midst  of  which 
that  house  must  stand  a  little  heavier  with  corrup- 
tion through  the  sort  of  life  that  you  have  lived. 
You  have  made  it  by  your  life  a  little  easier  for  a 
man  to  wrong  a  woman,  or  for  a  woman  to  disgrace 
her  womanhood.  These  are  the  terrible  necessities 
by  which  we  are  all  beset  and  surrounded.     I  say, 

I  will  do  neither  good  nor  evil  to  my  brethren.  I 
will  just  live  my  own  life."  And  the  eternal  com- 
pulsions of  the  universe  laugh  me  to  scorn.  As  well 
might  one  ray  of  the  sunlight  turn  its  radiance  black, 
and  think  to  darken  nothing  but  itself.  As  well 
might  one  wave  in  the  flowing  river  think  that  it 
could  turn  itself  backward  up  the  stream  and  make 
no  confusion.  It  cannot  be.  You  must  do  good 
or  evil  in  this  world.  To  say  that  you  will  do  no 
good  is  to  declare  yourself  the  enemy  of  the  human 
race. 

It  is  also  ours  to  accept  the  gracious  side  of  the 
same  truth.  If  no  man  can  be  wicked  and  not  do 
harm,  so  no  man  can  be  brave,  strong,  truthful,  and 
generous,  without  doing  good.  That  we  ought 
never  to  forget.     We  need  it  constantly  for  encour- 


MY    brother's   keeper  12/ 

agement  and  strength.  I  said  that  if  you  cheapened 
life  on  you  rested  something  of  the  responsibility 
of  the  suicide  whom  you  never  saw;  and  if  you 
brought  down  the  standard  of  social  Hfe,  you  had 
something  to  do  with  the  mischief  that  comes  in  a 
household  of  which  you  have  never  heard.  Is  it  not 
also  true  that,  if  you  do  anything  to  lift  life  and 
make  it  more  precious,  you  are  in  some  true  sense 
the  "  keeper"  of  any  poor  tempted  soul  who  is  saved 
from  his  sin  by  virtue  of  the  sense  of  the  precious- 
ness  of  life  which  gathers  round  him,  and  sustains 
or  shames  him  in  his  need?  Here  is  a  man  all  in  de- 
spair. He  is  ready  for  anything.  Murder,  suicide — ■ 
nothing  seems  to  be  too  desperate  for  his  reckless- 
ness. If  he  had  lived  three  centuries  ago  he  would 
have  taken  to  the  highway  and  robbed  or  killed,  re- 
gardless of  other  men's  lives  or  of  his  own.  Be  as 
cynical  as  you  will  about  the  condition  of  your  own 
time  and  land,  you  must  own  that  there  is  a  vast, 
solid  influence  at  work  to  keep  a  man  back  from 
such  desperation  now.  That  influence  is  made  up 
of  the  aggregate  goodness  of  all  good  men.  Apart 
from  and  beyond  the  special  persuasions  of  personal 
friends,  remonstrating  by  word  and  example  against 
his  sins,  there  is  for  every  wicked  man  a  great  pro- 
test of  all  the  goodness  in  the  world,  pleading,  re- 
buking, urging,  tempting  him  to  righteousness.  To 
that  great  protest  every  good  deed  of  every  most 
insignificant  good  man  or  woman  makes  its  contri- 
bution. The  boy  or  girl  at  school,  the  housekeeper 
about  her  quiet  tasks,  the  laborer  in  his  enforced 
obscurity,  the   clerk   at   his   desk   of   routine,  the 


128  MY   brother's   KEEPER 

sewing-girl,  the  errand-boy, — not  one  of  them  can  do 
his  duty  faithfully  and  not  make  duty  easier  for  all 
men  everywhere;  for  the  President  in  the  White 
House  and  the  philosopher  in  the  midst  of  his  great 
books.    Not  one  of  them  but  is  his  brother's  keeper. 

Perhaps  that  is  all  true,  you  say,  but  what  be- 
comes of  the  elements  of  intention  and  self-con- 
sciousness ?  Does  not  this  last  doctrine  bring  the 
whole  matter  back  into  the  region  of  selfishness 
again  ?  I  try  to  be  good  and  pure  for  my  own  sake, 
because  so  I  best  complete  my  own  life  and  gain  its 
best  results  and  am  most  happy — because  so  my 
own  soul  is  saved;  and  then,  incidentally,  without 
my  meaning  it,  some  other  men  are  helped  in  their 
temptations  by  my  struggle.  I  am  glad  to  know 
that  my  life,  so  far  as  it  has  been  good,  has  had  any 
such  power,  but,  since  I  did  not  mean  it,  have  I  not 
been  wholly  selfish?  Have  I  been  my  brother's 
keeper  in  any  sense  save  that  in  which  the  uncon- 
scious air  has  fed  him  and  the  song  of  the  unthink- 
ing bird  perhaps  has  lightened  his  despondency  and 
made  him  glad  ? 

It  is  a  natural  question.  But  what  if  there  should 
come  to  us  out  of  our  experience  another  know- 
ledge,— what  if  we  should  find  that  our  lives  are  so 
closely  bound  up  with  our  brethren's  that  we  cannot 
thoroughly  do  our  duty  by  ourselves  unless  we  have 
them  and  their  service  in  our  minds  ?  What  if  we 
learn  that  our  personal  problems  get  their  clearest 
light  and  our  personal  struggles  their  most  persistent 
strength  when  we  are  caring  that  the  world  should 
come  to  righteousness  ?     What  if  then  we  should  do 


MY   brother's   keeper 


129 


our  duties  distinctly  as  a  contribution  to  the  influ- 
ence which  is  to  save  the  world?  Is  that  impossible? 
I  do  not  necessarily  need  to  see  exactly  where  my 
influence  for  good  will  tell. 

Some  poor  wretch  appeals  to  my  sympathies, 
and  I  am  a  brute  if  I  will  not  reach  down  and 
pluck  him  out  of  any  mire  into  which  he  has  fallen. 
But  surely  the  great  wicked,  needy  world  is  not  less 
pathetic  than  the  single  needy  soul.  Even  more 
heroically  unselfish  than  he  who  offers  his  example 
to  a  single  tempted  soul  is  the  man  to  whom  the 
whole  world  is  always  calling  "  Be  pure!"  "  Be 
true !  "  *  *  Be  brave !  "  and  who  is  pure  and  true  and 
brave  for  the  world's  sake  as  well  as  for  his  own. 
Back  and  forth  between  the  world  and  himself  flow 
the  great  tides  of  influence.  He  keeps  the  world 
and  the  world  keeps  him.  He  and  the  world  make 
one  complete  system  of  advancing  holiness.  It  is 
the  experience  of  Jesus — "  For  their  sakes  I  sanc- 
tify myself,"  and  "  The  glory  which  Thou  hast 
given  me  I  have  given  them." 

There  is  no  subject  with  regard  to  which  we  feel 
so  strongly  as  with  regard  to  this — that  if  all  men 
would  do  what  a  few  men  are  doing  the  world  would 
almost  come  at  once  to  its  salvation.  It  is  a  melan- 
choly thing  to  see  how  limited  is  the  working  of  the 
impulses  which,  if  they  could  be  made  universal, 
would  fill  the  world  with  light  and  power. 

Look  at  this  matter  of  care  for  fellow-man.  In 
the  community  it  appears  as  public  spirit.  How  few 
men  after  all  are  public-spirited!     How  many  men, 


130  MY   BROTHER  S   KEEPER 

with  the  best  principles  in  the  world,  are  just  as 
hopeless  as  so  many  stones  or  trees  for  any  great 
public  interest!  A  public  charity  is  to  be  estab- 
lished or  to  be  put  upon  a  strong  foundation ;  a 
great  improvement  to  the  beauty  of  the  city  is  de- 
manded; a  gross  wrong  or  injustice  needs  to  be  re- 
buked ;  an  old,  stagnant  condition  of  things  must  be 
disturbed  and  broken  up ; — how  any  of  us  can  tell 
the  men  who  are  to  do  it !  How,  the  moment  other 
men's  names  are  mentioned,  we  instantly  turn  aside, 
or  shake  our  heads  and  say,  "  Oh,  no!  There  is  no 
use  in  applying  to  them."  Why  not  ?  Are  they 
immoral?  No,  indeed!  Are  they  opposed  to  the 
public  good  ?  Are  they  monsters  who  want  the 
evils  of  bad  government  perpetuated,  and  who  hate 
progress  and  improvement  ?  No,  indeed!  None  of 
these  things!  Simply  they  think  it  is  no  work  of 
theirs.  They  keep  their  own  souls  clean,  and  all 
besides  seems  to  be  something  superfluous  and  ex- 
tra, something  which  it  would  be  a  gratuitous  piece 
of  enterprise  for  them  to  undertake.  What  a  strange 
delight  there  is  (showing  how  exceptional  that  is 
which  ought  to  be  so  familiar)  when  any  new  young 
man  among  our  citizens  does  some  notable  act 
which  shows  that  thenceforth  he  is  ready  to  be 
counted  among  those  who  hold  themselves  responsi- 
ble for  the  way  in  which  things  are  going  in  their 
town.  How  few  there  are,  when  one  more  counts 
so  mightily  and  wins  such  enthusiastic  welcome! 

The  same  thing  is  true  in  the  Church.  "  The 
pillars  of  the  Church,"  we  say,  as  if  the  Church  were 
a  great  mass  of  inert  atoms  held  up  in  place  by  a  few 


MY   brother's   keeper  131 

Sturdy  columns  on  which  the  whole  weight  rested. 
The  ideal  Church  is  simply  winged  humanity— hu- 
manity with  the  pinions  of  faith  all  spread  and  mov- 
ing on  with  one  great  total  impulse  to  the  realization 
of  the  divine  life  for  man.  One's  whole  soul  glows 
while  he  thus  thinks  of  it;  and  then  he  turns  back 
and  sees— what  ?  A  handful  of  men  and  women 
who  give  nine  tenths  of  the  Church's  contributions; 
a  handful  of  men  and  women  of  intellect  and  piety 
who  are  willing  to  teach  the  Church's  children  and 
sit  in  the  houses  of  the  Church's  poor;  a  handful  of 
men  and  women  who  do  the  Church's  thinking,  and 
really  grapple  with  the  problems  in  which  every 
true  man  who  thinks  honestly  and  seriously  makes 
the  puzzled  life  of  other  men  more  clear;  and  then 
a  great  host  of  men  and  women  who  never  get  be- 
yond the  thought  that  the  Christian  Church  is  made 
to  save  their  souls,  and  that  they  have  joined  the 
Christian  Church  purely  for  their  souls'  salvation. 

Your  soul!  What  is  your  soul?  What  is  it  worth? 
Is  it  worth  all  this,  all  that  the  Bible  tells  us  of,  all 
that  Christ  has  been  and  is  ?  Ah,  yes,  no  doubt  it  is. 
That  soul  of  yours  is  precious  beyond  anything  that 
you  can  guess.  All  that  Christ  did,  all  that  Christ 
is,  nothing  less  than  that  is  necessary  for  your  soul's 
salvation.  But,  all  the  more  because  it  is  so  pre- 
cious,  what  a  shame  it  is  that  it  is  not  pouring 
its  power  and  value  into  the  Church's  life  and  finding 
its  own  salvation  in  saving  the  souls  of  other  men! 

The  same  is  true  everywhere.  I  go  into  any  school 
or  college  in  the  land,  and  I  know  perfectly  well 
what  I  shall  find, — a  great  many  good  consciences, 


132  MY   brother's   KEEPER 

a  great  many  boys  of  high  standards,  and  of 
pure  lives,  and  an  almost  total  absence  on  these 
students'  parts  of  any  notion  that  they  have  any 
duty  as  regards  the  low  tone,  the  falsehood  and  im- 
purity, the  frivolous  or  degraded  dissipation  vi^hich 
surrounds  them.  To  keep  their  own  souls  pure,  and 
let  the  college  and  their  fellow-students  go  their 
way, — that  is  the  most  they  dream  of.  That  is 
where  the  student's  faith  goes,  and  often  his  in- 
tegrity goes  with  it.  They  are  not  used,  and  so 
they  grow  corrupt.  They  are  selfish,  and  so  they 
are  weak.  Oh,  if  the  men  who  mean  right  for  them- 
selves would  only  energetically  mean  right  for  the 
world,  should  we  not  almost  see  to-day  the  coming 
of  the  Son  of  Man! 

Let  me  go  back  and  close  where  I  began.  It  is 
once  more  the  earliest  world,  outside  the  gates  of 
Eden.  Abel  lies  dead  upon  the  ground,  and  Cain  is 
fleeing  red-handed  from  the  murder.  But  there  is 
a  third  presence  there.  God  is  there.  It  is  His 
voice  that  asks,  "Where  is  Abel  thy  brother?" 
And  what  a  right  He  has  to  ask!  It  is  the  Father 
asking  for  His  murdered  child! 

Is  not  this  the  great  final  truth  about  it  all — that 
within  the  Fatherhood  of  God  we  are  to  know — 
there  only  can  we  fully  know — our  brotherhood  to 
one  another  ?  We  neglect  our  brethren  because  we 
are  so  far  from  our  God.  Within  His  love,  surround- 
ing us  like  the  elemental  life  in  which  alone  our  souls 
can  live,  may  we  all  learn  to  love  our  neighbors  as 
ourselves,  and  to  forget  ourselves  in  serving  them ! 


VIII. 
REST. 

"  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest." — Matthew  xi.  2S. 

I  CANNOT  begin  to  preach  to  you  from  these  rich 
and  familiar  words  without  stopping  a  moment  to 
remind  you  and  myself  what  a  sermon  from  this 
text  ought  to  be.  The  words  do  not  suggest  or 
tempt  any  merely  curious  observations  upon  the  or- 
dinary course  of  human  life.  Nor  do  they  seem 
even  to  allow  the  general  discussion  of  abstract 
themes,  the  elucidation  of  great  topics  of  impersonal 
theology — if  there  be  such  a  thing.  Let  other 
verses  from  the  Bible  lead  the  preacher  and  the 
hearer  in  those  directions — no  doubt  there  are  times 
when  it  is  good  that  we  should  follow  them.  But 
this,  which  is  beyond  question  one  of  the  best- 
known  and  best-loved  of  all  the  words  of  Christ,  has 
quite  a  different  suggestion.  He  who  would  preach 
from  it  must  at  least  try  to  make  sound  in  his  peo- 
ple's ears  the  sacred,  solemn  invitation  which  the 
words  contain.  There  is  a  sermon  possible  (would 
God  that  I  could  preach  it!)  which  should  cause 
everything  else  to  be  forgotten,  and  set  the  Saviour 
in  the  abundance  of  His  power,  in  the  completeness 

133 


134  REST 

of  His  love,  before  the  faces  of  men  weary  and 
troubled  and  distressed,  finding  it  hard  to  live,  often 
overcome  by  what  seems  the  impossibility  of  living 
truly  and  bravely;  and  make  them  hear  Him  say  to 
them,  "  Come  unto  me!  " — a  sermon  which  should 
feel  the  infinite  sympathy  of  the  words  and  of  the 
soul  from  which  they  came,  —  a  sermon  which 
should  reveal  to  somebody  that  there  is  a  heart 
which  pities  him  and  which  can  satisfy  him, — a  ser- 
mon which  should  leave  the  hearer,  when  it  closed, 
in  full  communion  with  the  soul  of  Christ,  and  with 
the  new  divine  life  joyously  begun.  Who  would  not 
give  anything  to  preach  that  sermon! 

Jerusalem  was  only  a  picture  of  the  universal  life 
of  man.  What  goes  on  everywhere  and  always, 
was  going  on  there.  The  streets  were  full  of  anxious 
faces.  The  houses  were  restless  with  uneasy  hearts. 
Men  were  making  plans  and  seeing  them  come  to 
disappointment,  and  making  them  over  again  only 
to  be  still  disappointed,  till  the  heart  was  weary 
through  and  through,  and  only  hoped  on  with  the 
dead  and  brutish  force  of  habit.  Men  were  finding 
that  the  dearest  affections,  the  most  sacred  relation- 
ships, carried  misgivings  and  the  power  of  untold 
misery  at  their  hearts.  Men  were  racing  each  other 
down  for  wealth,  suspecting  each  other's  character 
and  motives,  wondering  whether  the  v/hole  blind 
struggle  were  at  all  worth  while.  How  familiar  it 
all  sounds!  It  is  just  what  is  going  on  to-day.  And 
then,  with  perfect  calmness,  coming  so  quietly  that 
He  was  there  in  the  midst  of  them  before  they  saw 
Him,  came  One  who  declared :  "  I  can  give  you  the 


REST  135 

escape  from  all  this.  I  know  it  all,  but  I  tell  you 
that  it  need  not  be.  Come  unto  me,  all  of  you  that 
labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 
Much  is  it  when  a  child  comes  into  a  household 
or  a  world  of  weary  and  distracted  men,  and  with 
his  fresh  and  unsuspicious  happiness  rebukes  it  all, 
and,  opening  some  simple  and  elemental  vision  of 
life,  bears  his  bright  testimony  that  this  weariness 
and  distraction  need  not  be.  It  is  easy  to  smile  in 
our  superiority  and  say  :  "  He  does  not  know.  His 
disbelief  in  our  misery  comes  from  his  childish  igno- 
rance."  Even  while  we  say  that,  we  still  feel  the 
power  of  his  protest,  and  come  to  him  with  some 
sense  that  we  have  escaped.  But  this  is  no  child 
who  speaks  in  Jerusalem.  This  is  evidently  a  man 
who  has  not  merely  flitted  above,  but  has  pierced 
down  below,  the  misery  of  human  life.  He  will 
have  these  men,  these  brother-men  of  His,  escape 
not  merely  by  forgetting,  but  by  understanding 
their  weariness.  As  He  looks  them  in  the  face,  and 
the  power  of  His  being  tells  on  theirs,  we  can  see 
certain  great  changes  taking  place  within  them. 
Behold!  things  which  used  to  matter  very  much  to 
them  begin  to  show  their  insignijicance.  And  there 
are  other  things  which  they  thought  that  they  were 
missing  altogether  of  which  they  suddenly  or  slowly 
come  to  see  that  they  are  getting  the  essence, 
though  they  are  failing  of  the  form.  And  there  are 
other  things,  of  which  they  become  aw  ire  that  they 
would  find  more  joy  in  having  their  brethren  possess 
them  than  in  possessing  them  themselves;  that  in 
some  deep,  subtle,  and  true  sense  they  themselves 


136  REST 

had  what  those  whom  they  loved  possessed.  The^e, 
among  other  knowledges,  passed  over  as  it  w-^irc 
from  Jesus  into  them,  almost  as  light  passes  over 
from  the  sun  into  the  diamond  and  becomes  its 
light,  when  they  felt  the  invitation  of  His  presence 
and  came  unto  Him.  So  His  Rest  of  Soul  became 
their  rest  and  His  promise  was  fulfilled  even  before 
He  uttered  it,  as  are  all  God's  promises. 

Words  deepen  their  meaning,  throb  back  their 
force  to  us  out  of  a  profounder  and  profounder 
heart,  as  we  grasp  them  with  a  more  and  more  in- 
tense experience.  No  doubt  to  "  come  to  Christ  " 
came  to  mean  more  and  more  to  these  men  of  Jeru- 
salem, and  therefore  the  harmony  of  the  effect  with 
the  cause,  the  sufficiency  of  the  cause  for  its  effect, 
in  the  promise  of  Jesus  must  have  become  more  and 
more  apparent.  First,  physical  approach,  the  find- 
ing themselves  where  they  could  touch  His  hands 
and  look  into  His  face;  and  then  obedience,  the  do- 
ing of  what  He  wanted  them  to  do  and  what  would 
give  Him  pleasure;  and  then  communion,  the  con- 
fidential interchange  of  thought,  so  that  their  think- 
ing enlarged  and  refined  itself  with  His;  and  so,  at 
last,  likeness,  the  showing  of  His  character,  the 
coming  themselves  to  be  what  Jesus  was.  Near- 
ness, obedience,  communion,  likeness, — these  were 
the  stages  of  approach,  these  were  the  opening 
chambers,  room  beyond  room,  by  which  men  "came 
to  Jesus."  Only  when  all  the  rooms  had  been  en- 
tered and  occupied  was  the  coming  to  Him  complete, 
but  at  each  stage  it  was  just  so  much  nearer  to  its 
completion.     The  invitation,  as  each  man  accepted 


REST  137 

it,  throbbed  with  a  deeper  meaning.  At  the  same 
moment,  in  every  mingled  group  which  fronted 
Him,  there  were  souls  which  each  depth  of  the  in- 
vitation reached.  It  was  the  completeness  of  them 
all  together  that  made  the  fulness  of  the  power 
which  drew  the  multitude  after  Him  as  He  went 
up  and  down  the  land. 

This,  then,  is  the  old  story  out  of  which  the  words 
first  came  to  us.  Peace  fell  from  the  presence  of 
Jesus  upon  the  wearied  and  overburdened  hearts  of 
men  who  came  to  Him,  who  saw  Him  and  obeyed 
Him,  and  confided  in  Him,  and  grew  to  be  like 
Him.  And  now  we  want  to  remind  ourselves  of 
how  it  is  that  we  come  to  have  a  right  to  transfer 
all  that  across  the  centuries  and  hear  the  same  voice 
speaking  in  our  ears.  Remember  we  mean  that  in 
the  most  literal  sense.  I  wish  that  I  could  state 
how  literally  I  mean  it.  The  summons  of  Christ  to 
anxious  humanity  is  not  a  memory  of  something 
which  happened  years  ago;  it  is  something  which  is 
actually  happening  now,  to-day.  That  involves  and 
rests  upon  the  facts  that  man  is  the  same  being  that 
he  was  in  the  Gospel  days  and  that  Christ  still  lives. 

What  then  shall  we  say  is  the  relation  between 
that  invitation  to  which  eager  souls  listened  in  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem  and  the  perpetual  invitation 
which  is  always  coming  from  the  heart  of  Jesus  to 
the  soul  of  man  ?  Shall  we  not  say  that  it  is  the 
same  relation  which  always  exists  between  a  special 
event  of  the  Incarnate  Life  and  the  continuous  in- 
fluence of  Jesus, — indeed,  the  same  which  exists 
between  the  whole  Life  of  the  Incarnation  and  the 


138  REST 

perpetual  presence  of  the  Life  of  God  under  the  life 
of  man  ?  It  was  a  particular  manifestation  of  that 
which  is  universally  true;  and  therefore  the  univer- 
sal truth  may  be  studied  in  and  by  that  particular 
manifestation  of  it,  while  yet  it  does  not  lose  itself 
and  cease  to  be.  It  is  the  great  fire  which  burns  at 
the  heart  of  all  the  earth  breaking  out  at  one  vol- 
cano point.  It  is  the  sea  on  which  the  whole  world 
floats,  bursting  through  once  in  a  fountain  which 
strikes  the  stars.  Let  us  not  be  the  slaves  of  our 
senses,  we  who  ought  to  be  their  masters  and  take 
the  messages  which  they  bring  us  into  the  keeping 
and  interpretation  of  our  souls.  The  words  which 
the  bodily  lips  of  Jesus  spoke,  one  day  in  Syria,  do 
their  full  duty  only  when  they  quicken  and  inter- 
pret the  utterance  which  His  actually  living,  unseen 
heart  is  always  making  to  our  lives  and  souls  to-day. 
With  this  in  our  mind,  we  see  how  absolutely 
reasonable,  how  perfectly  true,  is  the  conviction 
which  has  possessed  millions  of  men  and  women, 
which  is  possessing  countless  numbers  of  men  and 
women  to-day,  that  they  too  may  come  to  Jesus,  to 
a  present  and  living  Jesus,  just  as  literally  and  truly 
and  blessedly  as  any  man  or  woman  came  to  Him 
in  the  old  Syrian  town.  The  whole  sky  opens,  and 
what  was  then  is  everywhere  and  always,  —  Jesus  is 
here!  We  say  it  to  each  other  here  and  now  pre- 
cisely as  men  said  it  to  each  other  there  and  then  — 
Jesus  is  here!  And  men  in  sorrow  look  at  a  present 
Christ  and  are  comforted.  Glad  men  look  up  and 
are  perfectly  sure  that  He  rejoices  in  their  gladness. 
Perplexed    men    get    light    from    Him    upon    their 


REST  139 

problems.  Wicked  men  get  first  rebuke,  and  then 
forgiveness,  and  then  the  power  of  a  new  life  from 
a  Christ  as  truly  visible  to  their  souls  as  the  Ciirist 
of  Jerusalem  was  visible  to  the  eyes  of  the  men  of 
Jerusalem.  I  would  that  I  could  put  in  clearer, 
stronger  words  how  literally  and  absolutely  this  is 
true.  Do  not  be  slaves  of  your  senses, — Christ  is 
Here!  Men  are  coming  to  Him  every  day.  He 
says  to  fou,   "  Come  unto  me." 

If  we  become  sure  of  that,  then  all  the  text  is 
ours,  and  tie  who  speaks  it  is  speaking  it  to  us. 
Let  us  read  it  again  and  try  to  hear  it  so,  with  ears 
which  know  that  it  was  meant  for  them,  —  "  Come 
unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and 
I  will  give  you  rest." 

The  first  element  of  power  in  these  words  is  their 
intense  and  intelligent  sympathy  with  life.  He  who 
speaks  them  knows  what  it  is  for  men  to  live.  Tell 
me,  could  He  have  known  it  better  if  He  had  gone 
down  the  business  streets  of  our  city,  if  He  had  sat 
in  our  anxious  counting-rooms  and  offices,  if  He  had 
stood  in  the  tempest  of  noise  which  fills  the  cham- 
bers of  the  roaring  mill,  if  He  had  gone  into  the 
squalor  of  the  tenement  house,  or  climbed  to  the 
garret  or  pierced  to  the  cellar  of  the  pauper  ?  He 
had  been  in  them  all.  He  is  in  them  all,  and  knows 
them  all  to-day.  And  the  truth  of  His  knowledge 
is  testified  by  this — that  it  is  to  weariness  and  the 
sense  of  heavy  burden  that  He  appeals. 

Ah,  my  friends,  if  there  were  ever  days  when 
those  words  of  Jesus  ought  to  be  heard,  and  to  bear 
witness  for  themselves  that  He  who  speaks  them  is 


140  REST 

divine,  they  certainly  are  these  days  in  which  we 
Hve.  They  speak  to  the  tumult  of  living.  And  was 
there  evei  a  time  when  the  tumult  of  living  was 
so  intense  and  universal  as  it  is  to-day  ?  It  matters 
not  what  region  of  life  you  choose  for  your  own: 
you  live  in  the  city  or  the  country ;  you  are  in  the 
heart  of  poverty  or  in  the  heart  of  wealth ;  you  are 
in  one  business  or  another, — it  makes  no  difference. 
Everywhere  there  is  tumult.  The  street  is  full  of 
furious  emulation.  The  study  is  full  of  tireless  dis- 
cussion. The  capitol  is  wild  with  political  debate. 
The  household  is  torn  with  social  ambition  and  un- 
rest. Was  there  ever  a  time  when  He  who  lifts  up 
His  voice  and  speaks  to  those  who  are  wearied  and 
heavy  laden  could  so  claim  the  hearts  and  con- 
sciousnesses of  those  who  heard  His  voice  ? 

We  all  know  what  it  is  to  "  take  life  hard."  The 
really  practical  problem  is:  How  can  the  vitality  of 
the  world  be  maintained,  and  the  fearful  wear  and 
tear  of  the  world  be  mitigated  ?  The  world  rejoices 
in  its  exuberant  vitality.  It  does  not  want  to  secure 
calmness  and  peace  by  death;  but  it  is  conscious  of 
perpetual  exhaustion  which  it  believes  is  not  a  ne- 
cessary part  of  its  vital  action,  but  a  false  and  terrible 
attachment  to  it.  The  world  dreams  of  a  complete 
life  which  shall  at  the  same  time  be  free  from  fric- 
tion and  full  of  rest. 

Here  is  a  poor  ship  struggling  through  the  sea. 
She  is  conquering  the  waves,  but  she  is  conquering 
them  with  terrible  struggle.  Every  twist  of  the  great 
water  has  her  in  its  power.  She  creaks  and  groans 
in  every  strained  and  tortured  plank.     She  is  weary 


REST  141 

and  heavy  laden.  And  then  there  comes  grandly 
and  calmly  sailing  past  this  bruised  and  beaten  ves- 
sel the  great,  sufficient  steamer,  fully  competent  for 
her  task,  conquering  the  sea  instead  of  being  con- 
quered, going  faster  and  not  slower  than  her  groan- 
ing sister,  by  and  by  leaving  her  out  of  sight  and 
coming  into  the  port  which  they  both  are  seeking 
whole  weeks  before  her  wrenched  and  battered  sis- 
ter ship  creeps  in  and  lays  herself  beside  the  wharf. 
So  man's  dream  of  how  he  ought  to  live  towers  and 
shines  beside  and  sails  away  past  his  consciousness 
of  the  way  in  which  He  is  living.  Whoever  will 
speak  to  him  and  be  heard  must  speak  with  the 
power  of  that  dream,  and  tell  him  in  some  way  how, 
without  losing  the  energy  of  life,  he  shall  still  es- 
cape the  weariness  of  life.  That  is  the  promise 
which  he  hears  from  the  lips  of  Christ. 

To  this  man  Christ  says,  **  Come  to  me."  It  is 
the  of^er,  the  claim  of  a  personal  presence,  and 
the  acceptance  must  be  in  the  spirit  of  that  offer. 
Where  shall  we  find  the  illustration  of  that  method? 
Let  us  look  for  it  in  the  simplest  of  all  places:  A 
child  is  wounded  in  body  or  in  mind,  hurt  by  some 
of  the  rough  things  which  strike  our  human  life  al- 
most as  soon  as  it  is  started  on  the  earthly  journey. 
He  is  standing  with  his  bleeding  breast,  or  bleeding 
soul,  helpless  and  confused;  and  then  his  mother 
calls  to  him  and  says,  "  Come  to  me,  my  child"; 
and  the  poor  little  creature  runs  into  her  open  arms 
and  throws  himself  upon  her  pitying  bosom.  Does 
he  find  comfort  there  ?  Indeed  he  does.  And  how  ? 
By  and  by  she  staunches  his  blood  and  heals  his 


142  REST 

wounds;  or,  by  and  by,  she  reasons  with  his  exas- 
perated spirit  and  sets  it  right;  but  first  of  all  it  is 
more  personal  and  elemental  than  that.  She  gives 
herself  to  him.  It  is  to  her  that  he  comes.  A  doc- 
tor might  dress  his  wounds.  A  teacher  might  cor- 
rect his  blunders.  Only  a  mother  could  take  his 
heart  to  her  heart,  and,  pouring  nature  into  nature, 
give  him  strength.  Why  is  it  that  you  go  to  the 
friend  whom  you  trust  and  love,  when  you  are  in 
trouble,  for  something  which  the  wisest  doctor  or 
the  shrewdest  lawyer  cannot  give  you  ?  It  is  that 
not  merely  Jus,  but  he  may  take  possession  of  you 
and  be  your  healing.  You  sit  beside  him  and  he 
says  no  word  ;  but  the  peace  of  his  presence  and  the 
healthy  soundness  of  his  heart  and  the  richness  of 
his  love  envelop  you.  All  that  he  afterwards  gives 
you  of  distinct  rebuke,  or  counsel,  or  suggestion, 
gets  its  character  and  value  from  this  first  bestowal 
of  himself,  from  this  possession  of  your  nature  by 
his  nature.  Alas  for  any  man  who  does  not  have 
some  great  sacred  room  of  a  brother's  life  into  which 
he  many  go  for  rest  and  blessing! 

Now,  any  idea  of  the  relation  of  a  man  to  Christ 
is  fundamentally  imperfect  and  untrue  to  the 
New  Testament,  which  has  not,  behind  everything 
special  and  particular,  a  large  and  general  concep- 
tion of  what  it  is  to  come  to  Him,  which  corres- 
ponds to  that  which  I  have  thus  described.  We 
sometimes  ask  ourselves  how  Jesus  would  have  re- 
ceived such  or  such  a  man  whom  we  know,  if,  in  the 
same  condition  and  state  of  mind  in  which  we  know 
him,  he  had  come  to  Jesus  in  Jerusalem.     The  real 


REST  143 

question  is  not  that.  It  is  how  Jesus  does  receive 
that  man  when  that  man  comes  to  Him  to-day.  I 
know  the  man  and  I  know  Jesus  now.  I  see  the 
man  come  into  the  spiritual  presence  of  Jesus  just 
as  literally  as  my  friend  comes  into  my  physical 
presence  when  he  crosses  the  threshold  of  my  room. 
And  then,  this  great  thing  happens.  All  that  is  in 
Jesus,  all  that  Jesus  is,  welcomes  him  and  takes  him 
in.  Jesus  beholding  him  loves  him.  That  is  not 
merely  an  emotion  in  the  Saviour's  heart;  it  is  an 
enfoldment  of  the  Saviour's  whole  being  around  the 
man,  as  the  mother  enfolds  herself  about  the  child, 
as  the  friend  enfolds  himself  about  the  friend.  That 
is  the  welcome  of  Christ.  To  believe  that  that  may 
happen  is  to  believe  in  Christianity.  To  experience 
that  is  to  be  a  Christian. 

Within  this  great  conception  all  that  the  welcome 
and  embrace  of  Christ  m.ay  do  for  a  man  is  enfolded 
and  contained.  They  are  the  elements  and  constitu- 
ents and  methods  of  this  rest  of  the  soul  whose  es- 
sence consists  in  the  surrounding  and  possession 
of  the  soul  by  Christ.  When  the  great  concep- 
tion is  thoroughly  fixed  and  present  with  us,  then 
we  may  look  for  those  elenients  and  give  them 
their  names  and  values.  I  hav^e  already  enumera- 
ted in  passing  what  they  are.  Let  me  remind  you 
of  them,  and  ask  you  to  consider  if  you  may  not 
claim  them  in  yourself.  They  are  principally  these 
four: 

I.  He  who  is  the  friend  of  Christ  sees  some  things 
to  be  insignificant  which  he  once  thought  to  be  most 
important.     What  a  power  of  restfulness  is  there! 


144  REST 

Some  men  seek  it  ignominiously.  They  say  of  the 
great  and  sacred  things,  of  the  things  without  which 
a  man  cannot  be  a  real  man  :  "  I  will  not  value  this, 
because,  If  I  value  it,  I  shall  seek  it,  and  if  I  seek  it 
I  shall  be  in  perpetual  unrest."  That  is  base.  But 
to  see,  as  you  keep  company  with  Christ,  that  He 
perfectly  does  without  that  which  you  have  lived  as 
if  you  could  not  live  without, — wealth  or  fame  or 
luxury, — and  so  to  see  that  you  can  live  without  it 
and  be  as  much,  nay,  be  much  more,  a  man — is  there 
not  a  great  rest  which  comes  to  the  soul  with  that  ? 
There  is  hardly  any  restfulness  so  great  as  that 
which  comes  with  the  liberation  from  a  false  and  un- 
natural and  unnecessary  desire, 

2.  And  then,  he  who  comes  to  Christ  enters  into 
Christ's  eternity  and  so  into  Christ's  patience. 
There  are  other  things  which  the  soul  desires  not 
less,  but  vastly  more,  when  it  is  given  up  to  Him. 
Before,  it  wished  for  them  languidly  and  with  no  stir 
of  effort ;  now,  that  those  things  should  come  to  pass 
becomes  the  one  passionate  desire  of  its  life.  Only 
now,  with  the  deeper  knowledge  of  how  great  they 
are,  the  man  not  merely  endures,  but  demands 
the  necessity  that  they  should  come  gradually,  and 
is  satisfied  that  their  perfect  attainment  should  be 
very  far  away.  Christ  gives  him  time  enough.  He 
does  not  relax  his  work  for  them ;  he  works  all  the 
harder.  But  he  works  calmly.  The  hurry  fades 
out  of  his  face.  The  rest  of  Time-Enough  has  come 
to  him  from  Christ. 

3,  And  then,  again,  Christ  spiritualizes  and  so 
enlarges  my  notion  of  the  thing  which  I  am  seeking, 


REST  145 

and  sometimes  lets  me  see  that  I  may  freely  have, 
perhaps  that  I  have  already,  the  soul  of  a  desired 
attainment,  and  so  sets  me  free  from  the  feverish 
pursuit  of  a  particular  form  of  it  which  very  possibly 
I  never  could  attain.  Here  am  I,  saying,  "  I  must 
and  will  have  happiness," — meaning  by  happiness 
some  special  form  of  happy  circumstances;  and 
Christ,  as  I  stand  close  to  Him,  says  quietly  :  "  Poor 
child,  do  you  not  see  that  you  are  happy  now,  or 
may  be  any  moment  that  it  is  purely  happiness  you 
seek  ?"  And  in  an  instant  all  is  changed  for  me, 
and  I  am  happy;  and  the  fever  cools  and  dies.  Is 
there  no  rest  in  such  a  revelation  ? 

4.  And  then,  once  more,  if  I  am  really  one  with 
Christ,  the  whole  humanity  which  is  in  Him  rises 
around  me  and  blends  my  personal  life  with  it,  so 
that  what  happens  to  it,  in  any  of  its  least  or  far- 
thest members,  truly  and  genuinely  happens  to  me. 
All  that  humanity  has,  in  some  true  sense,  is  mine. 
I  pity  you  if  you  have  never  caught  some  glimpse 
of  what  that  means.  I  need  not  know  everything, 
for  my  race  knows.  I  can  be  unhappy,  if  man  is 
happy.  Nay,  not  that,  but,  I  am  happy  if  man  is 
happy.  Let  all  that  man  has  be  mine,  and  lo!  I 
possess  much  which  I  feverishly  sought;  and  the 
search  ceases,  and  there  is  a  great  calm.  The  peace 
of  Him,  who  because  He  is  the  Son  of  Man  carries 
the  whole  world  in  His  heart,  is  mine. 

We  count  these  elements  in  the  rest  which  Jesus 
promises,  and  as  we  count  them  we  are  continually 
coming  back  to  that  which  I  have  said  at  length  al- 
ready,— that  they  are  only  elements  within  the  great 


146  REST 

personal  bestowal  of  Himself  which  is  the  true  and 
final  rest  which  Christ  bestows. 

But  there  is  more  than  this,  which  I  must  lead 
you  to  before  I  close.  To  the  great  multitude  who 
hear  the  words  of  invitation,  and  to  whom  they  be- 
come very  precious,  there  always  sounds  through 
them  one  word  which  is  not  written  there,  which  I 
have  not  spoken  yet,  but  which  really  sums  up  and 
expresses  all  their  value.  That  word  is  "  forgive- 
ness." The  great  burden  and  weariness  of  life, 
when  any  man  has  once  become  conscious  of  it,  is 
sin.  "  I  could  bear  anything  if  I  had  not  done 
wrong,"  the  true  man  says.  And  then  begins  the 
turmoil  of  self-reproach  and  self-contempt,  and  long- 
ing for  lost  innocence,  and  fear  of  consequences, 
which  beats  and  drives  the  poor,  bewildered  soul 
about  as  the  sea  beats  about  the  wrecked  ship, 
abandoned  to  its  power.  This  is  the  great  woe  of  the 
human  soul,  so  great  that  all  others  while  it  lasts 
seem  insignificant.  It  is  almost  a  mockery  to  talk 
of  everything  else  which  Christ  can  do  for  man, 
until  we  tell  first  what  He  can  do  for  man's  sin.  If 
He  cannot  save  the  ship  from  wreck,  it  is  a  mockery 
to  say  that  He  can  keep  the  cabins  from  disorder 
and  hold  the  masts  in  place. 

Therefore  it  is  not  strange  that  they  who  hear 
Christ's  promise  most  of  all  rejoice  in  it  because  it 
offers  them  forgiveness  of  their  sin.  "  He  has  ful- 
filled His  word,  He  has  given  me  rest,"  sings  the 
released  and  happy  soul.  And  what  most  glows  in 
his  heart,  and  trembles  on  his  lips  in  the  glad  utter- 
ance, is  this:  "  He  has  pardoned  my  sins.     He  has 


REST 


M7 


freed  me  from  their  guilt  and  power."  Can  any- 
thing satisfy  you  short  of  this  ?  Can  anything  be 
anything  to  you  if  you  have  not  this  above,  beyond, 
around  all  other  gifts  ?  Cry  for  forgiveness  first  of 
all, — "  O  God,  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner." 

And  yet,  in  all  the  intensity  of  the  desire  for  for- 
giveness, we  must  not  let  forgiveness  come  to  seem 
too  special,  separate,  and  narrow.  Forgiveness  is 
the  total  giving  of  the  Divine  to  the  human.  There 
is  no  part  of  that  complete  bestowal  which  is  not 
included  in  it.  The  great  salvation  is  not  divisible 
sharply  into  periods.  There  is  no  moment  when  the 
pardoned  soul  stands  pure  and  colorless,  with  every 
penalty  removed,  with  all  God's  anger  disappeared, 
but  with  no  holiness  enveloping  and  filling  it, — 
naked,  with  all  its  rags  torn  off,  but  with  none  of 
the  new  glorious  raiment  yet  folded  on  its  limbs. 
That  would  be  a  strange,  awful  moment  in  a  spiri- 
tual history.  Justified  but  not  sanctified,  as  the  old 
theologies  would  have  said.  No,  it  is  by  the  pres- 
sure of  His  gifts  of  grace  that  God  drives  out  the 
usurpations  of  the  devil.  It  is  by  claiming  the  soul 
for  His  own  that  He  sets  it  free  from  every  false 
dominion. 

And  so  the  rest  which  the  forgiven  sinner  knows 
is  one  and  the  same  with  the  rest  which  the  re- 
claimed nature  finds  in  its  replacement  in  the  obedi- 
ence of  God.  The  saving  of  the  wrecked  ship  is  one 
and  the  same  act  with  the  commission  which  sends 
it  forth  on  its  appointed  voyage.  Sometimes  the 
craving  for  forgiveness,  intense  as  it  is,  has  sounded 
almost  soft  and  sentimental.     It  has  seemed  to  be 


148  REST 

negative.  The  rest  which  it  craved  has  seemed  to 
be  only  a  release  from  old  bondage  and  a  luxurious 
repose  upon  the  assurance  that  "  there  remaineth 
now  no  condemnation."  Does  not  its  salvation 
from  such  weakness  lie  in  its  vigorous  identification 
with  the  soul's  possession  by  the  will  of  God  ?  The 
full  freedom  of  the  slave  has  not  come  with  the 
mere  breaking  off  his  fetters;  it  comes  only  when 
he  has  become  part  and  parcel  of  the  nation  which 
has  set  him  free.  The  drop  of  water  rests  in  the 
stream  only  when  the  stream's  life  fills  it  and  it 
moves  with  the  great  current  of  the  stream  towards 
the  ocean. 

Wrestle,  O  sinner,  with  your  sin !  Pray  for  for- 
giveness. Fix  your  eyes  on  the  heights  of  sinless- 
ness  and  see  their  beauty.  Hear  in  your  deepest 
soul  the  voice  of  Him  who  has  the  power  to  forgive 
calling  you  to  come  and  be  forgiven.  But  always 
in  the  depths  of  that  sweet  summons  hear  the  call 
to  all  obedience,  and  to  the  attainment  by  obedience 
of  the  entire  life  of  God.  O  sinner  in  your  sin,  O 
mourner  in  your  sorrow,  there  is  rest  for  you !  The 
everlasting  promise  is  for  you.  It  is  your  Christ 
who  says,  "  Come  unto  me!  "  You  are  the  weary 
and  heavy-laden  one  to  whom  He  speaks.  But  it  is 
all  of  Him  that  calls  to  all  of  you,  and  only  when  all 
of  you — your  obedience  and  grateful  service  result- 
ing in  gradual  likeness  to  Him  you  serve — has  come 
to  all  of  Him, — His  authority  and  great  designs  and 
ardent  inspirations, — only  when  all  of  you  has  come 
to  all  of  Him  can  He  complete  the  fulfilment  of  His 
promise,  and  give  you  perfect  rest. 


REST  149 

This  is  the  rest  which  remaineth  for  His  people! 
This  is  the  rest  into  which  the  brave  young  hearts 
and  the  brave  old  hearts  who  have  gone  forth  out 
of  our  sight  into  His  eternal  world  have  entered.  It 
is  a  rest  full  of  vigor  and  activity,  a  rest  which  is  the 
same  that  Christ's  own  soul  enjoyed.  It  is  His 
Peace.  Behold  !  He  offers  it  to  every  one  of 
you.  Behold!  He  stands  before  you,  your  Friend, 
your  Lord,  your  Christ,  and  says  to  you,  "  Come 
unto  me,  O  weary  and  heavy-laden  man,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest."  May  His  voice  so  prevail  with  you 
that  you  shall  come  to  Him! 


IX. 

THE    MATERIAL    AND    THE    SPIRITUAL. 

"And  as  he  went  out  of  the  temple,  one  of  his  disciples  saith 
unto  him  :  Master,  see  what  manner  of  stones  and  what  buildings 
are  here," — Mark  xiii.  i. 

It  was  the  last  week  of  Christ's  h'fe  in  Jerusalem. 
Every  morning  He  walked  in  from  Bethany  and 
taught  the  people  in  the  Temple,  and  went  back 
again  at  night  to  the  house  of  Lazarus  and  Martha 
and  Mary.  On  the  first  evening,  as  they  passed  out 
of  the  temple  between  the  great  walls  which  sup- 
ported its  vast  area,  the  disciples  with  their  Jewish 
pride  in  their  queenly  city  pointed  out  its  massive 
structure  to  Him:  "  Master,  see  what  manner  of 
stones  and  what  buildings  are  here." 

It  is  no  wonder  that  they  were  impressed  with  ad- 
miration. To  the  simple  fishermen  from  Gallilee 
this  superb  masonry,  whose  remains  still  testify  its 
greatness,  must  have  seemed  almost  superhuman. 
They  look  to  see  their  Master  impressed,  too.  But 
here  they  are  wholly  disappointed.  Jesus  was  ab- 
sorbed in  something  else.  He  was  thinking  about 
the  moral  and  spiritual  condition  of  the  city  whose 
material  architecture  was  so  superbly  strong.  With 
His  eye  set  upon  ^-bose  things  it  was  impossible  that 

150 


THE   MATERIAL  AND   THE   SPIRITUAL         151 

He  should  be  overcome  by  the  mere  size  of  stones 
and    skill    of    mason's  work.      "  Seest   thou    these 
great  buildings!  "  He  exclaims.     "  There  shall  not 
be  left  one  stone  upon  another  that  shall  not    be 
thrown  down."     He  looked  beyond  these  mighty 
works.      He  saw  the  life  that  lay  behind  them.     He 
saw  a  rottenness  of  character  which  was  really  un- 
dermining the  deep  masonry.     He  could  not  value 
it  as  the  disciples  did.      He  could  not  answer  their 
summons  to  join  their  admiration.     He  had  gone 
beyond  them,  and  was  dwelling  on  something  vastly 
more   interesting  and  impressive.     We  can  almost 
think  we  hear  a  certain  yearning  tone  in  the  voice  of 
Jesus  as   He  felt  how  His  deep  absorption  in  the 
spiritual  interests  of  His  people  had  made  Him  in- 
capable of  finding  pleasure  in  the  merely  outward 
signs  of  their  dignity  and  strength. 

And  is  not  this  the  penalty  of  all  enlightenment, 
'  —indeed,  of  all  deepening  of  life  of  every  sort  ?     It 
puts  out  of  our  power  the  pleasures  and  prides  that 
we  lived  in  while  our  lives  were  merely  superficial. 
We  give  up  admiring  lower  things  as  higher  things 
absorb  us  more  and  more.     You  have  a  child  for 
whom,  for  years,  you  have  been  desiring  prosperity 
and  popular  regard.     You  have  been  proud  that  he 
has  won  them  both.     He  has  succeeded  in  business 
and  he  has  made  hosts  of  friends.     But  in  the  mean- 
time, yoti  have  become  more  of  a  man.     You  have 
acquired  larger  thoughts.     You  have  come  to  the 
religious  value  of  character.       That  a  man  should 
be  pure  and  devoted  and  godly  seems  to  you  now 
to  be  the  one  needful  thing.     No  wonder  that  your 


152        THE    MATERIAL  AND   THE   SPIRITUAL 

child  wonders  and  is  puzzled  when,  bringing  into 
your  presence  his  money  and  his  fame,  which  used 
to  give  you  so  much  pleasure,  he  finds  that  they  do 
not  impress  you  as  they  used  to  do.  You  are  look- 
ing beyond  them  for  something  else  in  him  which 
perhaps  you  do  not  find. 

Or,  to  take  a  case  more  similar  to  that  of  Christ 
and  His  disciples,  you  grow  up  with  a  strong,  high 
pride  in  your  country, — her  vast  extent,  her  lordly 
wealth,  her  noble  buildings,  her  endless  railways,  all 
her  prosperous  life.  But  if,  as  you  grow  up,  you 
come  to  know  that  the  real  prosperity  of  a  land  is 
not  these  things,  if  you  come  to  ask  for  lofty  ideas, 
for  brave,  true  men,  for  domestic  purity,  for  scrupu- 
lous regard  for  all  men's  rights;  and  if,  not  finding 
these  so  plentifully  as  your  patriotic  soul  desires, 
your  enthusiasm  flags  over  the  signs  of  material  suc- 
cess, will  you  not  sometimes  almost  feel  that  you 
have  lost  something  in  reaching  these  higher  desires 
for  your  country  which  have  tarnished  your  satisfac- 
tion in  her  material  success  ?  Or,  your  friend  waves 
the  banner  of  his  happiness  before  your  eyes  and 
cries,  "  Rejoice  with  me  that  I  am  happy."  And 
you  have  to  answer  him,  "  I  cannot  rejoice  with 
you  as  you  want  me  to  rejoice,  because  I  see,  for 
such  as  you  are,  so  much  greater  and  truer  a  happi- 
ness that  you  ought  to  be  enjoying."  Thus  it  is  al- 
ways. Every  advance  in  the  standards  of  living, 
while  it  brings  a  man  higher  satisfactions,  shuts  him 
out  from  some  lower  ones.  He  can  no  longer  go  on 
his  way  "  like  a  beast  with  lower  pleasures,  like  a 
beast  with  lower  pains."     Christ  cannot  glory  with 


THE    MATERIAL   AND   THE    SPIRITUAL         1 53 

His  disciples  over  the  masonry  of  the  temple  as  He 
cannot  be  terrified  with  them  over  the  storm  at  sea. 
But  all  this  introduces  us  to  a  question  in  answer 
to  which  I  should  like  to  offer  you  a  few  thoughts 
— the  question  of  human  impressibility.  What 
ought  a  true  man  to  be  impressed  by  ?  What  is 
there  that  is  worthy  of  taking  hold  of  our  imagina- 
tions and  really  seeming  to  us  great  and  wonderful  ? 
For  men,  as  I  have  indicated  to  you  already,  are 
judged  by  their  impressibilities;  from  the  child  who 
starts  and  leaps  with  pleasure  when  you  flash  a  bit 
of  colored  glass  in  the  sun  before  his  eyes,  all  the 
way  up  to  the  philosopher  who  glows  with  joy  as  he 
perceives  some  new  relation  of  idea  to  idea  and  so 
discovers  a  new  truth.  Find  what  any  man  is  im- 
pressed by,  and  you  have  found  what  kind  of  man 
he  is.  You  step  into  a  shopful  or  earful  of  men  all 
sitting  indiscriminately  together,  and  you  tell  some 
story  of  how  money  may  be  made,  you  repeat  the 
story  of  some  rich  man's  way  of  growing  rich,  and 
almost  all  will  listen  and  admire.  You  turn  from 
that  and  repeat  some  item  of  the  daily  news,  some- 
thing that  only  requires  common  intelligence  and  a 
general  interest  in  the  doings  of  mankind  to  under- 
stand and  care  for,  and  a  smaller  number  will  look 
up  and  listen.  You  go  on  and  tell  some  tale  of 
heroism  and  self-devotion  that  only  a  generous  heart 
can  comprehend,  and  those  in  your  audience  who 
are  impressed  are  fewer  still.  Finally,  you  speak 
about  the  spiritual  nature,  about  the  soul's  life  in 
God,  the  blessedness  of  purity,  the  peace  of  trust, 
and  only  one  or  two  or  three  look  up  and  show  with 


154        THE    MATERIAL   AND    THE    SPIRITUAL 

kindling  eye  and  quiet,  earnest  face  that  they  care 
for  those  sacred  things  of  which  you  speak.  The 
men  are  judged  and  sorted  by  their  impressibiHties. 
So  nature  impresses  her  own  men;  and  Art  lays  her 
hand  on  hers;  and  both  are  judged  by  their  impres- 
sibilities. 

And  now  it  stands  out  clearly  in  our  story  that 
Jesus  did  not  care  for  the  Titanic  stones  on  which 
the  Jewish  temple  rested.  It  was  a  superb  utterance 
of  the  skill  and  strength  by  which  man  can  control 
the  physical  world.  There  they  are  still  to-day, 
those  giant  stones.  The  traveller  may  go  and  look 
at  them.  They  bear  amazing  witness  of  the  prow- 
ess of  power  and  patience  by  which  they  have  been 
wrought  out  of  the  mountain-side  and  piled  into  their 
places.  They  tell  of  man's  dominion  over  matter  as 
hardly  any  ancient  sight  can  tell.  They  were  cry- 
ing out  to  the  disciples  of  man's  power  over  matter, 
and  the  disciples  were  full  of  wonder  at  it,  but  Jesus 
did  not  care  for  it.  There  was  a  higher,  fuller  power 
of  man,  another  conquest  of  the  world  which  these 
men  had  missed,  and,  because  of  their  missing  that, 
this  mere  material  triumph  did  not  interest  or  move 
Him.  He  prophesied  how  transitory  it  was  all  to 
prove,  and  so  passed  on  and  left  it. 

Now,  we  need  to  know,  in  the  first  place,  that 
that  is  always  true.  It  is  something  which  we  who 
call  ourselves  the  servants  of  Jesus  Christ  have  no 
right  ever  to  forget, — that  He  never  is  impressed  by 
merely  material  success  or  power  any  more  than  He 
was  when  He  saw  them  in  Jerusalem.  You  take 
the  things  for  which  men  praise  you, — your  success 


THE    MATERIAL   AND   THE   SPIRITUAL         1 55 

in  business,  the  discovery  that  you  have  made,  the 
house  that  you  have  built, — nay,  as  one  proud,  ex- 
alted person  of  this  nineteenth  century  in  which  we 
live,  you  take  all  our  material  civilization  in  its 
grandeur  and  superbness,  and  you  hold  it  up  before 
Christ;  and  what  you  need  to  know  is  that  of  and 
for  itself  Christ  does  not  care  for  it.  It  was  not 
what  He  came  into  the  world  to  bring  to  pass.  It 
is  conceivable  that  all  of  it  might  exist  to-day,  and 
yet  Christ's  work  be  a  profound  and  total  failure. 
We  see,  indeed,  that  all  the  spring  of  marvellous 
energy,  all  the  vitalizing  power  which  made  our  civi- 
lization, has  come  in  connection  with  the  Gospel; 
and  so  we  are  apt  to  think  that  what  the  Gospel  set 
itself  to  do  was  to  give  man  this  power  over  the 
material  world  ;  but  when  we  undertake  to  search 
for  it  we  find  that  not  one  word  ever  fell  from  Jesus' 
lips  which  told  that  this  was  what  Ho  sought.  If 
material  civilization, — that  is,  the  accumulation  of 
wealth,  the  multiplication  of  physical  comforts,  the 
conquering  of  force  to  man's  will  so  that  it  leaps 
the  ocean  almost  with  a  bound  and  speaks  his  mes- 
sages around  the  globe, — if  it  literally  could  stop 
short  there  and  go  no  farther,  leave  literally  no  im- 
press upon  character,  it  would  make  no  impression 
upon  Christ.      He  would  care  nothing  for  it. 

And  what  comes  next  ?  Does  it  not  follow  that 
if  we  are  Christians,  servants  of  Christ,  we  too  are 
to  care  nothing  for  material  success  in  and  for  itself? 
We  yield  to  it  in  a  servile  way.  We  let  it  rule  us 
and  oppress  us.  In  our  own  lives  it  keeps  us  strug- 
gling and  working  all  our  days,  from  our  earliest  to 


156        THE    MATERIAL   AND   THE   SPIRITUAL 

our  latest  years,  heaping  up  money  or  providing 
comforts  for  ourselves.  In  our  brethren's  lives 
around  us  we  yield  to  its  demands,  and  render  our 
homage  to  the  man  who  overpowers  us  with  the 
bulky  imposition  of  his  wealth.  If  we  were  really, 
thoroughly,  Christians,  we  could  not  be  such  slaves. 
We  must  rise  up  in  protest  and  insist  that  these  are 
not  the  true  things  for  a  spiritual  being  either  to 
strive  for  or  to  admire.  O  my  dear  friends,  we 
are  not  wholly  Christ's  until  some  such  freedom 
comes  to  us!  Now  and  then  we  see  a  man  who  does 
resist  and  rebel.  We  see  some  mortal,  made  ap- 
parently just  like  ourselves,  who  boldly  says  that  he 
will  not  live  for  the  outside  of  things,  and  who  with 
perfect  satisfaction  goes  his  way  through  life,  disre- 
garding those  same  things  that  are  to  us  the  lords 
and  kings  of  everything.  I  think  that  there  is  some- 
thing very  strange  in  the  mixture  of  pity  and  re- 
spect with  which  we  regard  such  a  man.  We  look 
up  to  him  and  we  look  down  on  him  at  once.  It  is 
the  curious  utterance  of  our  double  consciousness 
about  material  things, — the  superficial  consciousness 
which  values  them  supremely,  and  the  deep  under- 
consciousness  that  in  themselves  they  have  no 
value.  Every  sight  of  such  a  man  stirs  in  us  strange 
questionings,  sets  us  to  asking  whether  the  secret  of 
his  carelessness  is  an  insensibility  which  is  brutal 
and  has  not  come  up  to  the  value  of  these  things,  or 
a  higher  sensibility  which  is  Christlike,  which  has 
gone  beyond  the  care  for  them  and  left  them  behind 
it  in  its  care  for  better  things. 

If  we  ask  this  question  about  the  indifference  of 


THE   MATERIAL  AND   THE   SPIRITUAL         1 57 

Jesus,  it  will  not  be  hard  to  give  it  its  true  answer. 
Indeed,  we  have  only  stated  a  small  part  of  the  truth 
when  we  have  said  that  Christ  did  not  care,  does  not 
care  ever,  for  merely  material  triumphs,  or  for  the 
perfection  of  material  things.  In  a  true  sense,  no 
doubt,  He  does  care  for  them;  only  for  Him,  with 
His  perfect  perception,  the  whole  world  is  only  one, 
and  it  is  impossible  for  Him  to  do  what  we  are  al- 
ways doing,  to  take  the  inferior  part  which  is  meant 
to  work  as  a  means  and  to  give  it  a  value  aside  from 
its  connection  with  the  superior  part  which  is  the 
end  to  which  it  has  to  minister.  Christ  does  value 
the  material,  but  always  with  an  outlook  beyond  it 
to  the  spiritual.  If  we  keep  this  in  view,  I  think  we 
may  believe,  with  the  profoundest  reverence,  that 
there  is  no  work  upon  material  things  faithfully  done 
by  man  which  God  does  not  look  upon  with  pleas- 
ure. Thoroughness  and  beauty  are  the  two  excel- 
lent qualities  of  man's  work  upon  material  things. 
Out  of  the  hillside  quarry  are  dug  two  blocks 
of  stone,  and  one  of  them  with  patient  labor  is  set 
into  a  wall,  where  for  generations  it  holds  a  great 
tower  in  its  place.  The  other  is  carved  into  a 
statue,  which  for  centuries  stands  like  a  perfect 
flower,  shedding  the  fragrance  of  its  beauty  around 
upon  the  lives  of  men.  Does  God  have  any  pleas- 
ure in  these  two  achievements  ?  I  cannot  picture  to 
myself  the  God  entirely  indifferent  to  them.  Every 
being  delights  in  seeing  active  anywhere  the  powers 
which  embody  its  own  best  activity.  Now,  God  is 
the  Creator,  and  if  in  the  creation  we  can  read 
anything  of   the    Creator,  these   two   dispositions. 


158        THE    MATERIAL  AND   THE   SPIRITUAL 

thoroughness  and  beauty,  must  lie  at  the  very  centre 
of  His  Being ;  for  they  everywhere  pervade  the  world 
that  He  has  made.  Thoroughness  speaks  from  the 
lips  of  every  compact  adjustment  of  means  to  end, 
from  every  reserve  of  power  which  is  revealed  to  us 
as  the  years  go  on.  Beauty  shines  out  of  every 
flower  and  star  and  all  the  manifold  variety  of  life 
that  lies  between.  And  when  a  man  builds  a  strong 
bridge,  or  paints  a  glowing  picture,  when  the  con- 
structive or  the  aesthetic  power  manifests  itself  in 
man  the  child,  caught  by  direct  inheritance  from 
God  the  Father,  the  Father  does  not  look  on  indif- 
ferently, but  cares  for  what  His  child  is  doing,  and 
proves  His  care  by  sending  the  forces  of  His  crea- 
tion to  help  the  work  which  the  child  by  his  inven- 
tion or  his  taste  is  doing.  We  feel  sure  of  that 
concerning  God,  and  there  is  no  word  of  Jesus 
which  implies  the  contrary  of  that.  No  man  can 
read  the  Gospels  and  not  catch  the  tone  of  such  a 
sympathy  as  proves  that  wherever  the  eye  of  Christ 
fell  upon  any  man  in  Palestine  who  in  those  days 
was  doing  thorough  or  beautiful  work  in  any  de- 
partment of  activity,  the  Man  of  men  honored  him 
for  it  and  rejoiced  in  it.  Oh,  do  not  think  of  Him 
who  brought  our  nature  to  its  best  as  being  totally 
estranged  from  those  things  which  ninety-nine  hun- 
dredths of  our  race  are  doing  all  the  time.  Think 
of  Him  as  caring  for  it  all,  as  caring  for  what  they 
did  and  for  what  you  are  doing ;  but  always  as  being 
preserved  from  the  slavery  of  material  things  by  two 
principles  which  were  absolutely  despotic  and  invari- 
able with  Him, — the  principle  that  no  material  thing 


THE    MATERIAL   AND   THE    SPIRITUAL         159 

was  entirely  satisfactory  unless  it  could  reveal  some 
spiritual  usefulness,  and  the  principle  that  if  any 
material  thing,  however  beautiful,  hindered  any 
spirituality,  there  should  be  no  hesitation  about  sac- 
rificing it.  Look  at  those  two  principles.  See  if 
they  did  not  both  absolutely  rule  in  Christ,  and  see 
if  they  are  not  just  what  we  need  to  save  us  from  the 
tyranny  of  material  things. 

The  first  principle  was  that  no  material  thing  was 
wholly  satisfactory  unless  it  could  reveal  some 
spiritual  usefulness.  That  appears  everywhere  in 
Jesus.  It  was  what  lay  at  the  root  of  His  method 
of  teaching  by  parables.  No  sentimentalist  of  form 
or  color  will  dare  say  that  he  sees  a  beauty  or  ten- 
derness in  a  lily  or  a  sky  that  Jesus  did  not  see 
there.  No  botanist  will  claim  that  he  dissects  an  in- 
terest out  of  a  flower  which  was  hidden  from  Him 
who  made  the  flower.  And  yet  these  evidently 
were  not  the  things  which  made  the  sky  or  flower 
satisfactory  to  Jesus.  Listen  to  Him:  "  The  King- 
dom of  Heaven  is  like  unto  a  king  that  made  a  mar- 
riage for  his  son."  Then,  a  king  making  a  marriage 
for  his  son  must  be  like  unto  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven;  and  if  the  marriage  of  a  prince,  then  the 
marriage  of  a  peasant,  and  all  the  relations  of  the 
humblest  or  the  highest  life.  All  was  like  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven;  all  shone  with  spiritual  meaning. 
When  He  had  once  seen  that,  how  was  it  possible 
that  He  should  think  of  them  and  leave  that  out,  or 
that  He  should  be  satisfied  with  any  other  man's 
thinking  about  them  which  should  leave  that  out  ? 

Or  take  another  illustration.     I  do  not  doubt  that 


l6o        THE   MATERIAL  AND  THE   SPIRITUAL 

Jesus  loved  the  cities  where  He  lived  and  worked, 
loved  Jerusalem  and  Nazareth,  loved  their  very 
streets,  loved  them  as  we  love  our  Boston.  But  to 
Him  a  city  was  a  sacred  thing;  a  multitude  of  men 
gathered  under  the  conditions  most  calculated  to 
enrich  and  discipline  life.  What  good  they  might 
do!  How  good  they  might  grow!  A  city  was  the 
type  of  heaven  to  Him.  If  then  he  saw  His  be- 
loved Jerusalem  growing  rich,  but  not  growing 
good,  beautiful,  with  sparkling  palaces  and  domes, 
as  it  sat  on  its  strange  hilltop,  but  shining  with  no 
light  of  godliness,  it  was  not  strange  that  He  was 
disappointed  and  poured  out  His  whole  soul  in  lam- 
entation that  was  all  the  more  bitter  because  she 
who  had  fallen  was  so  beautiful.  And  the  same 
must  have  been  true  of  a  man.  Did  Jesus  care  for 
bustling  energy  and  enterprise  ?  Indeed  He  did. 
Life,  life  was  what  He  was  forever  calling  out  for. 
But  a  man  full  of  energy  who  fought  with  every- 
thing except  his  passions,  and  desired  all  good 
things  but  character, — that  sort  of  man  was  all  the 
sadder  to  the  Saviour  for  the  energy  that  he  pos- 
sessed. Man,  to  Jesus  who  had  made  man,  meant 
spirituality;  and  man  without  spirituality  was  to 
Him  man  without  that  manhood  by  which  the  body 
and  the  mind  and  the  impetuous  will  are  made  truly 
human. 

Now,  is  it  inconceivable  that  we  should  come  to 
feel  about  material  forces  and  triumphs  just  as  Jesus 
did?  A  great  commercial  man  is  ruling  in  our  town. 
Men  are  all  singing  his  praises.  His  power  of  mak- 
ing money  is  immense.     His  power  over  other  peo- 


THE    MATERIAL   AND   THE    SPIRITUAL         l6l 

pie's  destinies  is  awful.  He  can  stretch  out  his 
hand  and  paralyze  a  village  on  the  other  side  of  the 
continent.  Again,  he  can  lift  up  his  voice  and  bid 
a  desert  by  the  Rocky  Mountains  blossom  into  a 
city.  All  men  are  praising  him.  Shall  you  and  I 
praise  him  ?  Let  us  ask  ourselves  what  Jesus  would 
say  of  him.  If  he  is  all  selfish,  not  one  word  of 
praise  would  fall  on  him  from  those  blessed  lips. 
With  a  pity  that  would  seal  his  condemnation,  the 
Christ  who  saw  what  he  might  be  would  cry  over 
him,  "  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem!"  Shall  you  and  I 
praise  him  then  ?  Oh,  for  the  grace  and  clearness  to 
say  that  we  will  not!  Oh,  for  the  spiritual  honesty 
which  shall  refuse  to  set  such  a  man's  life  as  the 
model  life  before  young  men!  Oh,  for  the  decency 
which  shall  refrain  from  belauding  him  when  he  is 
dead  for  virtues  which  even  he  would  have  blushed 
to  have  heard  mentioned  in  his  presence  when  he 
was  alive!  The  time  must  come  when  Christian 
men  shall  refuse  to  honor  capitalists  for  mere 
wealth,  or  cities  for  mere  size,  or  their  age  for  its 
mere  accumulation  of  physical  comfort.  When  that 
time  comes,  when  every  material  triumph  is  com- 
pelled to  show  some  spiritual  gain,  some  contribu- 
tion to  human  character,  then  how  much  more  life 
will  mean ! 

The  other  principle  that  governed  our  Lord's  re- 
lation to  the  world,  I  said  was  this, — that  if  any 
material  thing,  however  beautiful  and  perfect  in  it- 
self, stood  in  the  way  of  any  spirituality,  it  should 
be  sacrificed  without  a  hesitation.  We  mark  every- 
where in  the  life  of  Jesus  a  perfect  perception,  not 


l62         THE   MATERIAL   AND    THE   SPIRITUAL 

merely  of  the  absolute,  but  of  the  comparative  value 
of  things,  and  so  an  easy  and  unquestioning  post- 
ponement of  the  less  important  to  the  more  impor- 
tant always.  This  led  to  a  certain  distinct  character 
being  stamped  on  the  career  of  Jesus,  which  belonged 
to  the  special  circumstances  in  which  He  lived  and 
the  purpose  for  which  He  had  come  to  earth.  Under 
these  circumstances  and  with  that  purpose  set  be- 
fore Him,  He  could  not  possibly  do  things  which  it 
was  yet  in  His  nature  to  do,  and  which  it  would  have 
been  His  delight  to  do  under  other  conditions. 

We  must  guard  ourselves  against  thinking  that  in 
the  few  acts  which  Christ  did  on  the  earth,  we  have 
specimens  of  all  the  acts  which  it  was  possible  for 
Him  to  do,  and  so  which  it  would  be  right  for  us  to 
do.  Some  people  seem  to  have  such  an  idea,  and  it 
limits  their  notion  of  what  it  is  right  for  a  Christian 
to  do  very  narrowly  indeed.  This  applies  very 
clearly  to  our  Lord's  whole  relation  to  what  we  call 
aesthetics,  to  the  beautiful  in  human  art.  There  is 
not  one  sign  that  He  was  ever  touched  by  it  in  the 
least;  and  any  child  who  understands  Christ  could 
give  you  the  reason.  He  was  too  busy  ;  He  was  too 
earnest;  He  was  too  set  on  higher  things;  He  was 
here  to  save  men.  The  sight  of  their  sin,  their  folly, 
their  misery,  was  before  Him  every  day.  Behind 
that  glowed  to  His  divine  sight  the  other  picture  of 
their  possibility.  He  saw  what  they  were;  He  saw 
what  they  might  be.  He  was  so  set  on  lifting  them 
out  of  what  they  were  and  into  what  they  might  be 
that  He  had  no  time  left  to  think  of  the  beauty  or 
the  ugliness  with  which  their  life  chanced  to  be  sur- 


THE   MATERIAL  AND    THE   SPIRITUAL         163 

rounded.  It  was  not  because  He  hated  art  and 
beauty  that  He  never  dwelt  upon  them ;  it  was  that 
He  loved  righteousness  with  the  intenser  love.  So 
His  indifference  was  not  from  a  negation,  but  the 
whole  positiveness  of  His  soul  was  in  it. 

And  how  conceivable  this  is!  How  familiar  some 
illustrations  of  the  same  thing  are!  The  intenser 
and  higher  wish  bids  the  lower  one  stand  aside  and 
bide  its  time.  He  who  goes  into  a  burning  house  to 
save  a  child  out  of  the  flames  will  not  stop  in  the 
rush  on  which  his  own  life  and  the  child's  depends 
to  gaze  upon  the  rarest  or  loveliest  pictures  that 
hang  upon  the  burning  walls.  That  seems  to  me  to 
tell  the  story  of  one  side  of  Christ's  indifference  to 
the  things  that  occupy  our  taste  and  attention.  It 
does  not  prove  any  absence  in  Him  of  the  faculties 
in  us  to  which  those  things  appeal.  A  man  who  is 
fighting  for  his  life  tramples  the  flowers  under  his 
feet,  but  it  does  not  prove  that  he  is  a  brute  who 
cannot  see  their  beauty.  A  soldier  gives  up  his 
home  for  the  field  and  camp,  but  it  does  not  show 
that  he  is  a  savage  with  no  family  affection.  The 
Puritans  in  their  fear  of  idolatry  cast  away  all  art, 
and  broke  the  painted  windows  and  hewed  statues 
to  pieces;  it  certainly  did  not  prove  with  all  of  them 
that  they  did  not  feel  the  beauty  of  what  they  de- 
stroyed. With  all  strong  men  this  sense  of  propor- 
tion, which  sacrifices  the  less  to  the  greater,  is  an 
essential  quality.  And  all  strong  times  in  the 
world's  history  have  compelled  that  same  sacrifice 
of  the  aesthetic  to  the  moral  which  characterized 
the  life  of  Jesus.     Severe  and  simple  in  His  moral 


164        THE   MATERIAL  AND    THE    SPIRITUAL 

earnestness,  nobody  misses  that  which  we  yet  all 
feel,  as  we  compare  His  life  with  our  own,  to  be 
absent, — the  conscious  pleasure  in  adornment  and 
art,    the  seeking  of  the  tastes  for  satisfaction. 

How  ought  this  feature  in  the  life  of  Him  whom 
we  delight  to  call  our  Lord  to  affect  our  feeling 
about  our  own  cultivation  and  gratification  of  the 
sense  of  beauty  ?  Ought  we  to  cast  it  aside  as  some- 
thing wrong,  and  say  that  we  will  have  no  more  to 
do  with  it  than  He  had  ?  Certainly  not !  We  ought 
to  be  sure  that,  under  different  conditions  from 
those  terrible  ones  in  which  His  Incarnate  Life  was 
cast,  Jesus  would  have  delighted  in  all  true  beauty 
that  man  had  ever  found  or  created,  with  an  appre- 
ciation that  no  man  has  ever  felt.  We  ought  to 
rejoice  in  the  cultivation  of  all  beauty  as  the  fit  ex- 
pression of  man's  joy  in  that  life  which  the  redemp- 
tion of  Christ  has  made  so  deeply  and  truly  joyous. 
So  the  Christian  has  the  best  right  of  any  man  to 
cultivate  the  aesthetic  sense.  But  at  the  same  time 
he  is  bound  by  his  Christianity  to  cultivate  it  purely, 
and  in  continual  subordination  to  the  moral  and 
spiritual  needs.  The  Christian  may  delight  in 
beauty,  but  he  must  catch  from  Christ  the  assur- 
ance that  no  beauty  is  really  beautiful  which  in  any 
way  hinders  righteousness  or  weakens  spiritual  life; 
and  he  must  be  ready  to  strip  every  beautiful  thing 
away  the  moment  that  God  calls  him  to  intenser  life 
and  duty.  Does  not  this  cast  a  doubt  over  the  way 
in  which  many  of  your  houses  are  adorned  ?  Does 
it  not  convict  a  great  deal  of  the  unreal,  impure, 
dillettante  affectation  which  calls  itself  a  taste  for 


THE    MATERIAL   AND    THE    SPIRITUAL         165 

beauty  ?  Nothing  can  be  more  essentially  ugly  to  a 
wise  perception  than  the  house  crowded  with  trink- 
ets of  exquisite  form  and  color,  and  inhabited  by 
men  and  women  of  idle  or  impure  or  selfish  or  little 
lives.  The  beauty  with  which  they  have  bedecked 
their  bower  makes  only  more  unpleasant  the  lives  of 
the  insects  who  inhabit  it. 

Here  is  the  simple  rehearsal  of  the  whole  matter. 
There  are  four  classes,  as  concerns  the  whole  matter 
of  delight  in  and  cultivation  of  what  is  artistically 
beautiful.  There  is  the  man  who  is  below  it  all,  too 
stupid  to  feel  its  influence — he  is  the  brute.  There 
is  the  man  who  loves  the  beautiful,  but  loves  it 
either  out  of  imitation  of  other  people  or  with  his 
senses  only,  having  no  spiritual  perceptions  beyond 
— he  is  the  connoisseur  or  pedant.  There  is  the  man 
who  allows  himself  all  joy  in  material  beauty  but 
holds  it  always  subordinate  to  truth  and  duty — he 
is  the  Christian.  And  there  is  here  and  there  the 
man  who  is  above  it  all,  called  to  such  serious  work, 
fighting  so  fierce  a  battle,  that  he  has  no  time  left  for 
outward  beauty,  but  lives  in  the  unseen  beauty  of 
devotion.     At  the  head  of  all  such  men  is  Christ. 

These  are  the  two  principles,  then.  He  who  insists 
on  looking  through  the  material  to  the  spiritual 
which  lies  below  it  and  which  it  represents  and 
educates,  he  who  looks  beyond  the  material  to  the 
spiritual  which  is  so  much  more  important — he  is  the 
man  whom  mere  material  success  and  magnificence 
cannot  impose  upon.  Men  come  to  him  and  say, 
"Behold  what  manner  of  stones  and  what  buildings 


l66        THE    MATERIAL   AND    THE    SPIRITUAL 

are  here!"  They  say,  "See  how  rich  this  man 
is!"  "  How  strong  this  institution  is!"  "  How 
beautiful  this  art  is!  "  His  answer  rings  out  clear 
and  strong:  "  So  far  as  they  all  mean  spirituality 
and  make  spiritual  men,  I  do  indeed  value  them 
all  and  thank  God  for  them;  and  yet  I  value  them 
always  with  a  higher  value  for  the  things  beyond.  I 
will  let  any  of  them  go  at  any  moment,  if  so  I  can 
reach  to  higher  spirituality  myself,  or  make  other 
men  better  men."  How  free  that  man  is!  How 
he  can  walk  the  proudest  streets  and  not  cringe  to 
the  arrogant  wealth  which  crowds  them  !  How  calm 
the  judgment  with  which,  looking  at  them  through 
Christ,  he  dares  to  form  his  own  brave,  independent 
thoughts  of  men  and  things! 

How  shall  one  reach  that  freedom  ?  I  hope  that  I 
have  made  it  clear  that  it  is  only  by  entering  into 
the  higher  anxieties  of  Jesus  that  one  is  freed  from 
the  lower  anxieties  of  men.  You  must  care  with  all 
your  soul  that  God  should  be  glorified  and  that  men 
should  be  saved.  If  you  can  do  that,  you  are  free. 
And  you  can  do  that  only  by  letting  God  first 
glorify  Himself  in  you  by  saving  you.  Let  Christ 
be  your  Saviour.  Then,  tasting  His  salvation,  your 
one  great  wish  will  be  that  all  men  may  be  saved, 
and,  wishing  that  intensely,  you  will  be  free  from 
every  other  wish  that  does  not  harmonize  with  that. 
That  is  St.  Paul's  great  idea  when  he  speaks  of  the 
Christian  as  "  Casting  down  imaginations  and  every 
high  thing  that  exalteth  itself  against  the  knowledge 
of  God,  and  bringing  into  captivity  every  thought 
to  the  obedience  of  Christ." 


X. 

THE    DOUBLE   CAUSE. 

"And  his  name  through  faith  in  his  namejiath  made  this  man 
strong,  whom  ye  see  and  know." — Acts  iii.  i6. 

A  LAME  beggar  had  sat  for  years  at  the  gate  of 
the  Temple  in  Jerusalem,  and  all  the  people  knew 
him  well.  He  was  part  of  their  city  landscape. 
They  knew  him  as  they  knew  the  carved  columns  of 
the  Temple  doorway.  One  day  Peter  and  John,  two 
disciples  of  the  Christ  who  had  been  lately  crucified, 
had  come  that  way  and  cured  the  beggar's  lame- 
ness. The  people  were  full  of  interest  and  excite- 
ment, and  part  of  their  excitement  evidently  came 
from  the  fact  that  the  man  who  had  been  cured  was 
one  whom  they  all  knew  so  well.  The  miracle  had 
been  worked  on  most  familiar  material.  Not  some 
strange,  mysterious  flesh  and  bone  which  might  be 
different  from  their  own  had  been  submitted  to  the 
Healer's  power ;  but  this  notorious  cripple  of  Jeru- 
salem, this  beggar  of  the  Temple,  "whom  ye  see  and 
know," — it  was  his  stiff  and  crooked  joints  that  had 
been  loosened  and  straightened;  it  was  his  feet  and 
ankle-bones  that  had  received  strength.  We  can  al- 
most see  his  old  companions  gathering  around  him 
and    handling    him    and   feeling   the    power  which 

167 


l68  THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE 

always  belongs  to  the  familiar  and  commonplace 
when  it  is  touched  by  the  mysterious  and  super- 
natural. 

The  mysterious  is  always  thus  peculiarly  impres- 
sive when  it  comes  in  connection  with  what  we 
know  most  intimately.  The  moonlight  is  most 
weird  and  solemn  when  it  shines  into  the  room 
where  every  chair  and  table  is  well  known,  or  when 
it  makes  strange  the  garden  in  whose  well-known 
paths  you  have  walked  all  day.  The  great  man  is 
most  impressive  and  mysterious  when  he  comes  into 
your  common  room  and  sits  among  your  homely 
furniture.  In  a  somewhat  different  way  this  was 
what  forced  the  reality  of  Christ's  wonderful  nature 
and  works  upon  the  people  who  had  known  His 
person  since  He  was  a  boy.  "  Ye  both  know  me 
and  ye  know  whence  I  am,"  He  cried.  It  was  by 
hands  that  they  had  touched  that  the  wondrous 
works  were  done.  Out  of  a  face  whose  every  feature 
they  knew  the  strange  light  shone. 

I  want  to  study  with  you  this  afternoon  the  story 
of  the  lame  man's  cure  at  Jerusalem.  And  first  of 
all  let  us  fill  ourselves  with  this  reality  which  it  pos- 
sessed for  those  who  saw  it  first.  The  divine  power 
which  had  touched  him  was  all  the  more  unmistak- 
able and  all  the  more  wonderful  because  it  had 
shown  itself  not  on  some  supernal,  transcendental 
substance,  but  on  the  dull,  sordid  flesh  of  this  poor, 
well-known  beggar.  At  the  same  time  his  sordid 
flesh  had  shown  its  inherent  sacredness  in  being 
able  to  answer  to  the  touch  of  Christ's  apostles. 
So  the  great  works  of  God's  Spirit  become  real  to 


THE   DOUBLE    CAUSE  169 

US  because  they  touch  and  change  our  common 
lives,  and  our  common  lives  become  sacred  because 
they  can  be  touched  by  God's  Spirit. 

The  cure  of  the  cripple,  as  St.  Peter  tells  it  to 
the  people,  is  the  work  of  a  double  cause.  He  says 
that  the  name  of  Jesus,  that  is,  of  course,  the  power 
of  Jesus,  has  made  the  man  whole  through  faith  in 
His  name, — that  is,  in  His  power.  This  faith  may 
be  the  faith  of  the  disciples  who  had  wrought  the 
cure,  or  of  the  lame  man  who  had  been  cured.  In 
either  case,  as  you  see,  the  cause  is  double.  There 
is  the  power  of  Christ  and  then  there  is  the  condi- 
tion, whether  of  the  disciples  or  the  cripple,  which 
gave  the  power  of  Christ  a  chance  to  work.  "  His 
name  through  faith  in  His  name," — these  two  to- 
gether make  the  total  cause  as  the  result  of  which 
the  rescued  beggar  is  even  now  making  the  temple 
ring  with  his  joy  as  he  goes  walking  and  leaping  and 
praising  God.  Neither  part  of  the  double  cause 
could  have  been  left  out, — the  exterior  force  or  the 
interior  condition,  the  objective  or  the  subjective, 
the  name  of  the  powerful  Christ  or  the  faith  of  the 
obedient  cripple.  Either  of  them  would  have  been 
useless  without  the  other.  As  the  result  of  the  two 
together,  there  stands  the  cripple  cured. 

The  philosophy  which  is  involved  here  is  perfectly 
familiar.  Its  illustrations  are  constantly  occurring. 
Indeed,  we  may  take  exactly  this  formula  which  St. 
Peter  uses  and  employ  its  form  to  describe  any  one 
of  the  changes  which  may  take  place  in  the  condi- 
tion of  a  man  or  of  the  human  race.  "  His  name 
through    faith    in    His    name    has  made   this    man 


I/O  THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE 

whole,"  says  Peter.  How  shall  I  tell  the  story  of 
an  ignorant  child  who  by  long  study  has  developed 
into  wisdom  ?  Is  there  not  there  again  the  outward 
force  made  effective  through  a  personal  condition, 
until  the  result  is  a  new  quality  or  nature  in  the  hu- 
man being  ?  The  outward  force  is  truth,  all  alive 
and  seeking  for  its  own  expansion.  The  personal 
condition  is  study  or  devoted  intelligence,  and  the 
result  is  in  the  educated  man.  Truth  through  the 
study  of  truth  hath  made  this  man  wise. 

And  so  all  the  loveliness  of  nature,  finding  its  way 
in  through  man's  power  of  loving  nature,  creates  all 
that  delight  in  nature  and  absorption  of  her  loveli- 
ness which  constitute  the  artistic  life.  Beauty 
through  man's  sense  of  beauty  makes  this  man  fine 
and  rich  and  strong.  So  a  commandment  which  is 
totally  outside  of  our  life,  possessing  us  through  our 
obedience  to  it,  makes  then  a  conduct  which  is 
truly  our  own.  Commandment  through  obedience 
to  commandment  makes  us  just  and  kind.  The 
commandment  might  thunder  from  the  skies  for- 
ever, but,  unobeyed  by  us,  it  would  leave  us  when 
its  thunders  ceased  just  as  it  found  us  when  they 
began.  So  a  great  man  set  before  our  admiration 
makes  us  like  himself.  A  great  man  through  ad- 
miration of  his  greatness  makes  us  great. 

Everywhere,  you  see,  it  is  the  same.  Some  power 
outside  ourselves  unites  itself  with  some  disposition 
in  ourselves,  and  so  the  changes  in  our  natures 
come.  I  suppose  there  is  no  exception  to  the  rule. 
I  suppose  no  change  in  our  natures,  in  what  we 
really  are,  ever  comes  by  those  natures  simply  work- 


THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE  171 

ing  on  themselves,  untouched  by  any  outside  force. 
Certainly  the  other  statement  is  true.  Certainly  no 
outside  force  can  change  us  until  it  has  made  itself 
a  confederate  in  some  will  or  act  of  our  own.  It  is 
true  even  of  our  physical  life.  The  most  pestilential 
wind  might  blow  across  our  faces  and  no  more  make 
disease  in  us  than  it  makes  disease  in  a  statue,  if  it 
did  not  find  in  us  living  men  and  women  some  re- 
sponsive possibility  which  it  does  not  find  in  the 
dead  stone.  And  the  most  life-giving  gales  might 
breathe  their  freshness  on  our  lips,  and  make  no 
more  life  in  us  than  they  make  in  the  dead  corpse, 
if  it  were  not  that  they  met  in  us  the  possibility  of 
living  and  gave  their  strength  to  us  through  it.  The 
vital  forces  of  the  world  through  our  power  of  liv- 
ing make  us  live. 

If  I  might  dwell  yet  for  a  few  moments  on  the  il- 
lustrations of  our  truth,  it  is  set  forth  very  vividly 
in  all  the  best  efforts  which  men  make  to  help  their 
fellow-men.  How  often  the  experiment  of  man  to 
help  his  fellow-man  has  failed,  however  earnestly 
and  generously  made!  Here  is  the  help  abundantly, 
on  one  side, — money,  knowledge,  sympathy,  hope- 
fulness,— all  that  makes  life  rich.  There,  on  the 
other  side,  is  need, — a  poor,  crushed,  broken  life 
which  wants  these  all.  How  often  the  effort  to  give 
them  all  has  failed!  How  often  help  has  come  like 
the  shower  from  the  heavens,  and  rolled  off  help- 
lessly from  the  hard  surface  of  the  life  on  which  it 
fell!  Charity,  simple  charity,  the  mere  giving  of 
what  one  has  to  another  man,  does  not  make  that 
other  man  rich.     There  must  be  generous  taking  as 


1/2  THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE 

well  as  generous  giving.  There  must  be  a  sympa- 
thetic soil  to  receive  as  well  as  a  sympathetic  rain  to 
fall.  And  so  our  wiser  charity  is  led  to  anxious 
thought  about  the  character  of  the  men  and  women 
upon  whom  benefactions  are  bestowed — perfectly 
sure  that  both  sides  must  work  together  or  only  the 
most  superficial  good  is  done.  Sympathy  through 
the  sympathetic  reception  of  sympathy  has  made 
this  poor  man  rich,  this  dreary  house  warm  and  full 
of  comfort,  this  coward  brave,  this  weak  man  strong. 
So  only  can  the  story  of  a  complete  charity  be  told. 
But  it  is  time  now  to  have  done  with  illustrations. 
Out  of  them  all  our  truth  stands  clear.  In  every 
one  of  the  instances  which  I  have  quoted,  two 
things,  the  outward  force  and  the  personal  disposi- 
tion or  readiness  to  receive,  obey,  and  use  the  force, 
unite  to  bring  the  final  result.  The  truth  which  is- 
sues from  such  an  assemblage  of  instances  must  be 
the  old,  ever-new  truth  of  how  human  nature  and 
the  world  in  which  it  lives  belong  together  and  cor- 
respond to  one  another.  One  thought  of  the  world 
simply  coordinates  man  with  all  its  ordinary  pro- 
ducts. The  world  has  made  him  as  it  has  made  the 
elm-tree  and  the  elephant,  and  he  is  no  more  in  it 
than  all  the  rest.  Another  thought  of  the  world 
makes  it  and  its  processes  quite  insignificant  as  re- 
gards humanity.  He  is  so  totally,  so  absolutely,  its 
superior,  so  different  from  it  in  origin  and  nature, 
so  exclusively  the  child  of  God,  that  he  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  world  except  to  rule  it  and  to  use  it. 
It  can  have  no  power  over  him.  The  thought  of 
our  verse,  the  Christian  thought,  is  different  from 


THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE  I73 

either.  Man  and  the  world  belong  together.  They 
are  different  in  dignity,  in  origin,  in  nature.  They 
are  two  and  not  one,  and  yet  they  are  two  which 
make  one;  for  every  result  which  is  ultimately  pro- 
duced in  man  comes  from  the  working  of  some  ex- 
ternal force  with  and  through  the  cooperating  will 
of  man.  Take  man  out  of  the  world  and  you  leave 
it  full  of  forces  which  will  find  no  worthy  material  to 
work  upon.  Take  the  world  away  from  man  and 
you  leave  him  with  plenty  of  capacities,  but  with  no 
force  to  stir  them  into  motion.  Put  man  and  the 
world — by  which  I  mean  everything  outside  of  the 
personal  human  life — together,  and  then  you  have 
the  total  cause  from  which  the  whole  result  pro- 
ceeds. Man  as  the  appropriator  and  applier  of 
forces  through  his  human  will  and  nature — that  is 
the  truth  of  this  verse  of  St.  Peter. 

I  said  it  was  the  Christian  truth.  Christ  made 
these  certain  things  evident, — I  am  sure  that  if  you 
think  over  His  teachings  and  His  influence  you  will 
see  how  they  all  certainly  came  forth  from  Him. 
He  made  it  evident:  (i)  That  the  great  purpose  of 
everything  which  was  at  work  in  the  world  was  to 
make  man  a  better  man,  that  human  character  was 
the  only  worthy  result  to  which  all  earthly  forces 
were  directed.  (2)  That  human  nature,  or  charac- 
ter, needs  all  the  forces  from  outside  itself,  whether 
they  be  the  forces  of  the  world  around  it  but  out- 
side itself,  or  the  sublime  forces  and  influences 
which  come  direct  from  God.  Human  character, 
or  nature,  cannot  perfect  itself.  (3)  That  the 
world's    forces    come    to    human    character    only 


174  THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE 

through  the  submission  of  the  human  will.  These 
three  things  Christ  made  evident.  They  constitute 
the  soul  and  heart  of  His  religion.  And  these  three 
truths  are  in  the  teaching  of  Peter,  that  it  is  the 
name  of  Jesus  through  the  faith  in  Jesus  which  has 
made  the  lame  man  whole. 

Is  it  not  true  that  such  a  principle  as  this  really 
points  out  what  ought  to  be  the  wide  range  of 
thought  and  study  for  all  earnest  men  ?  One  man 
says,  "  Study  nature  and  let  man  alone;  science  and 
not  metaphysics  ought  to  be  your  task."  Another 
man  says,  "  No,  let  nature  go  and  study  man;  sci- 
ence is  godless  and  profane.  It  is  metaphysics 
that  gives  light."  One  theologian  concentrates  his 
thought  on  God,  and  treats  man  as  if  he  were  dead 
material.  Another  theologian  fastens  all  his 
thought  on  man,  as  if  in  understanding  him  all  prob- 
lems would  be  solved.  But  if  the  soul  of  man  is 
ultimately  saved  by  great,  strong  forces  of  the  uni- 
verse,— all  crowding  in  through  the  door  of  man's 
assent,  eager  to  work  upon  man's  spiritual  life, — 
then  certainly  no  region  of  heaven  or  earth,  no 
truth  which  it  is  possible  to  know  of  man  or  God, 
can  be  left  out  by  him  who  wishes  to  be  completely 

wise  unto  salvation."  It  is  foolish  and  weak  to 
think  of  the  study  of  objective  fact,  or  of  the  inner 
nature  of  man,  as  if  either  of  them  could  take  the 
other's  place  and  make  it  useless;  since  it  is  fact 
and  power  through  the  human  reception  of  fact  and 
power  that  completes  the  human  life. 

Apply  all  this  to  practical  religion.  How  hard  it 
seems  for  many  men,  for  many  whole  churches  and 


THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE  I75 

whole  ages,  to  keep  the  symmetry  and  completeness 
of  the  great  spiritual  processes  by  which  the  world 
is  gradually  being  saved!  What  is  it  to  you  that 
the  Church  offers  her  sacraments,  that  the  Bible  lies 
open  with  its  story  of  Christ,  that  the  Incarnation 
is,  indeed,  a  veritable  fact  in  history — nay,  that  God 
lives  in  heaven  and  in  the  earth  and  everywhere  ? 
What  is  all  that  to  you  ?  Just  exactly  what  it  is  to 
the  chamber  that  the  sunlight  is  pouring  down  upon 
the  window-pane ;  just  exactly  what  it  is  to  the  mill- 
wheel  that  the  water  is  rushing  down  the  flume; 
just  exactly  what  it  is  to  the  ship  that  the  wind  is 
blowing  from  the  west — everything,  if  your  nature 
and  life  are  ready  to  receive  them.  Nothing  what- 
ever, if  the  great  powers  of  the  Church  and  the  Bible 
and  Christ  and  God  find  nothing  in  you  which  opens 
to  them  as  they  Liy  their  majestic  power  against 
your  life. 

A  ship  lies  close  beside  a  rock  here  on  our  coast. 
Some  day  the  west  wind  blows.  It  comes  fresh 
from  the  prairies  and  the  mountains,  and  it  is  eager 
for  the  ocean  which  it  loves.  It  blows  on  ship  and 
rock  alike.  Why  is  it  that  two  weeks  from  now  the 
ship  is  riding  in  the  fragrant  sunshine  of  some  Medi- 
terranean bay,  while  the  rock  alongside  of  which  it 
lay  stands  still,  bruised  and  beaten  by  our  cruel  seas? 
Two  men  of  you  years  ago  were  touched  alike  by 
God, — why  is  it  that  to-day  one  is  rich  in  the  mem- 
ory of  years  of  godliness,  years  in  which  he  knows 
that  he  has  been  trying  to  do  good  unselfishly 
to  God's  children  for  tiieir  Father's  sake,  and  the 
other  has  nothing  but  a  life  of  unspiritual  selfishness 


1/6  THE   DOUBLE    CAUSE 

to  remember  ?  Is  the  Bible  a  power  ?  Some  men 
have  held  that  it  is,  with  a  completeness  which 
has  seemed  almost  to  lodge  the  power  in  the  very- 
print  and  paper  of  the  Book  itself.  If  you  were  to 
read  it,  even  mechanically,  it  would  save  you.  If 
you  opened  it,  even  at  random,  it  would  guide  you. 
Are  the  Sacraments  powerful  ?  Surely  they  are ;  and 
so  to  a  baptism  which  meant  no  consecration  men 
have  brought  their  children,  and  to  a  communion  in 
which  there  was  no  spirituality  men  have  come 
themselves;  and  they  have  gone  away  from  one  or 
the  other  thinking  that  something  really  had  been 
done.  Is  the  name  of  Jesus  mighty  ?  Yes,  indeed; 
and  so  men  say  it  like  a  charm.  Is  God  great  and 
awful  ?  Surely  He  is;  and  so  men  rattle  profanely 
through  unmeaning  and  half-articulated  oaths.  In 
every  case  the  blunder  is  the  same.  It  is  giving  to 
the  half  the  power  and  virtue  which  belong  only  to 
the  whole.  The  Bible  believed  in  and  obeyed — 
that  is,  the  Bible  plus  belief  and  obedience — tJiat  is 
power.  God  loved  and  honored — that  is,  the  name 
of  God  surrounded  with  the  reverence  and  the  affec- 
tion of  the  devoted  soul, — that  is  strength  for  re- 
straint and  inspiration.  The  west  wind  plus  the 
ship's  nature  makes  the  power  of  the  voyage.  The 
ground's  richness  plus  the  seed's  fertility — that,  no 
less  than  that — makes  the  tree! 

We  all  remember  how,  in  the  first  chapters  of 
Genesis,  all  the  beasts  are  brought  to  Adam  to 
know  what  he  would  call  them.  They  went  out 
from  him  by  and  by,  bearing  names  which  he  had 
given   them.     Not  till  their  lives  had  touched  his 


THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE  177 

life  were  they  complete  and  ready  for  their  full 
careers.  It  always  seems  to  me  as  if  there  could  be 
no  test  more  sure  of  what  kind  of  a  man  that  first 
man  was  than  we  should  get  if  we  could  see  into 
his  heart  as  he  stands  there  in  the  Garden,  and  know 
whether  that  submission  of  all  the  creatures  made 
him  proud  or  humble.  Did  it  make  him  proud  ? 
Did  he  see  them  depart  after  his  naming  of  them, 
saying  over  to  himself,  "  Behold,  they  are  all  mine 
and  all  this  world  exists  for  me!"  If  so,  he  was 
but  a  poor  creature,  and  all  the  misery  which  has 
come  since  in  his  race  might  have  been  prophesied. 
But  did  it  make  him  humble  ?  As  he  saw  them  go, 
did  he  become  aware  of  what  a  great  and  awful 
thing  it  was  to  be  the  centre  of  so  much  life,  and  feel 
his  terrible  unfitness  for  it,  and  cry  out  for  strength? 
If  so,  then  he  was  strong,  and  all  the  good  strength 
which  manhood  has  displayed  since  then  was  there 
in  its  germ  in  that  humility.  Always  men's  qualities 
are  shown  by  whether  their  powers  and  privileges 
make    them    proud  or  make    them    humble. 

So  you  must  all  be  judged — if  you  believe  what 
I  am  preaching  to  you  this  afternoon — by  the  im- 
pression which  it  makes  upon  your  soul.  I  have 
dared  to  tell  the  young  man  here  that  the  Bible,  the 
Church,  the  ever-pleading  Christ,  nay,  God  Him- 
self, wait  for  his  call  before,  with  all  their  power,  they 
can  save  his  soul.  He  can  say,  "  Go,"  or  "  Come." 
It  is  an  awful  power.  Does  it  make  him  who  pos- 
sesses it  bold  or  humble  ?  If  it  makes  him  proud, 
it  shows  how  weak  he  is.  If  it  makes  him  humble, 
if  the  sense  of  what  a  Guest  it  is  who  stands  at  his 


1/8  THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE 

door,  unwilling — nay,  in  some  true  sense,  unable—^ 
to  enter  until  he  shall  bid  the  bolt  fly  back, — if  all 
this  makes  him  cry  out  with  fear  at  himself  lest  he 
should  be  unfit  for  such  responsibility ;  if,  seeing  the 
full  depth  of  meaning  in  the  words  which  tell  that 
only  to  the  "  pure  in  heart  "  can  come  the  real  bless- 
edness of  knowing  God,  he  feels  how  powerless  he 
is  to  keep  his  own  heart  pure  and  cries  out  to  God 
Himself  to  do  it,—"  '  Make  me  a  clean  heart,  O 
God ! '  O  God,  who  wilt  not  enter  into  me  unless  I 
am  such  that  I  can  receive  Thee,  oh,  make  me  such 
that  I  can  receive  Thy  life!" — if  such  humility  as 
that  possesses  him,  then  how  great  he  is,  and  what 
a  great  life  opens  before  him!  Oh,  how  true  it  is 
that  the  completest  humility  of  man  has  always 
come,  must  always  come,  by  man's  knowing  the 
greatness  of  his  nature  and  his  privileges! 

Another  value  of  the  truth  I  have  been  preach- 
ing lies  in  the  great  hope  which  it  unfolds  to  the 
imagination  of  the  soul  that  holds  it.  If  there  were 
needed  no  cooperation  of  the  consenting  soul  to 
the  power  of  Christ,  then  Christ  must  have  done 
long  ago  the  work  which  He  proposed  to  do  for 
man.  No  obstacle  existing,  He  must  have  pressed 
on  at  once  to  the  entire  fulfilment  of  His  love.  He 
would  not  have  delayed.  And  then — why,  then,  it 
must  be  that  this  which  we  see  now  in  ourselves  and 
in  the  world  is  all.  There  would  remain  no  hope 
of  more  beyond.  Can  we  think  that  without  a  sad 
sinking  of  the  heart  ?  What,  is  this  all  ?  This  half- 
way life — this  mixture  of  the  baser  with  the  better 
way  in  everything — this  selfishness,  this  sluggish- 


THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE  179 

ness,  this  sensuality,  this  wearisome  yielding  to 
temptation  only  to  repent  and  struggle  upward  for 
a  moment  and  then  fall  again — is  this  all  ?  Has 
Christ  done  His  work  in  us  ? 

But  if  the  other  thought  is  true,  if  Christ's  work 
is  not  done  in  us,  but  only  just  begun;  and  if  it 
lingers  not  because  He  is  reluctant,  but  because, 
needing  our  cooperation,  it  can  be  done  only  so 
fast  and  so  far  as  we  receive  it  and  allow  it, — then, 
with  all  our  humiliation  there  certainly  comes  hope. 
All  the  unknown  things  which  Christ  will  do  for  us 
so  soon  as  we  are  ready;  all  the  great  revelations 
which  He  has  to  make  to  us  so  soon  as  we  can  see 
them, — all  these  lie  open  wide  before  us.  To  him 
who  thoroughly  believes  this  truth  it  seems  as  if  a 
voice  were  ever  crying  in  those  words  which  Jesus 
spoke  so  often  to  the  crowds  in  Palestine,  "  He  that 
hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear."  Perhaps  no  ear 
does  hear  the  special  message;  perhaps  no  intelli- 
gence is  yet  fine  and  pure  and  clear  enough  to  take 
the  truth  which  yet  some  day  the  whole  world  shall 
know.  But  the  cry  has  hope  in  all  the  humiliation 
that  it  brings.  Agnosticism  says,  "  We  do  not  know, 
and  because  we  do  not  know  we  must  give  up  the 
hope  of  ever  knowing."  Our  truth  says,  "  We  do 
not  know,  but  the  hindrance  in  us  is  not  essential 
and  perpetual.  It  is  incidental  and  may  be  tem- 
porary. Let  us  be  better  and  humbler  and  more  un- 
selfish and  more  spiritual,  and  we  s/ia// see."  And  so 
our  very  ignorance  becomes  the  power  of  a  better  life. 

And   certainly   our   truth   gives   very    interesting 
value  to  the  daily  incidents  and  little  things  of  life. 


l8o  THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE 

If  there  is  really  waiting,  behind  the  door  of  our  re- 
luctance and  incompetency,  a  vast,  deep  wealth  of 
blessing,  of  character,  of  knowledge,  which  might 
be  ours  if  only  there  were  broken  down  this  wall  of 
hindrance  between  us  and  it,  then  how  important 
and  significant  everything  must  be  which  shakes 
that  wall  of  hindrance  and  tends  at  all  to  its  dis- 
lodgment.  Every  least  incident  of  life  may  have 
this  value.  Every  largest  incident  of  life  is  really 
insignificant  unless  it  has  this  value  in  some  degree. 
The  change  from  wealth  to  poverty  or  from  poverty 
to  wealth,  from  sickness  to  health  or  from  health  to 
sickness,  the  forming  or  the  breaking  of  a  friend- 
ship, the  undertaking  or  the  finishing  of  a  task, — all 
of  these  are  no  more  than  the  mere  changes  of  the 
wind  unless  somehow  they  give  occasion  to  such 
changes  in  our  dispositions  that  some  of  the  great 
abundance  of  truth  and  goodness,  some  of  the  great 
abundance  of  God  which  is  waiting  outside  our 
lives,  can  enter  in. 

This  touches  the  work  that  we  try  to  do  for  our 
fellow-men,  and  often  redeems  its  superficialness 
and  insignificance.  Often  it  must  seem  as  if  the 
mere  exertion  to  make  your  child  or  your  neighbor 
more  comfortable  were  a  very  little  thing.  It  is 
worth  doing,  for  comfort  is  better  than  discomfort, 
and  the  affection  which  you  show  is  well  worth  tes- 
tifying. But  if  it  can  be  more  than  that, — if,  by  the 
kind  act,  and  still  more  by  the  echo  which  your  act 
brings  of  the  Divine  goodness,  you  can  open  the  life 
of  your  neighbor  or  your  child  to  some  inflow  of  the 
great  goodness  and  truth  which  is  all  ready  to  invade 


THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE  l8l 

it, — then  surely  it  is  more  than  worth  the  doing; 
it  is  worth  the  sacrifice  of  one's  own  will  and  pleas- 
ure, it  is  worth  the  consecration  of  one's  life  to  do! 

Little,  sometimes,  must  it  seem  to  the  devoted 
worker  for  the  poor  merely  to  improve  the  dwelling 
where  the  poor  man  lives, — to  win,  perhaps,  and 
perhaps  not  to  win,  his  gratitude  because  his  win- 
dows catch  a  brighter  sunshine  and  his  rooms  are 
open  to  a  healthier  air, — little  to  build  the  gallery 
and  open  it  freely  to  all  who  will  come  and  gaze, 
however  ignorantly,  on  its  pictures, — little  to  shut 
a  drinking  shop  here  and  there  and  save  one 
wretched  family  from  blows  and  starvation, — little 
any  of  these  things  must  seem  sometimes  in  them- 
selves, but  if  they  stand  any  chance  of  opening  the 
wretched,  poverty-hardened  life  to  visions  and  com- 
panionships, to  knowledge  of  God,  to  perceptions, 
however  dim  at  first,  of  the  divine  influences  which 
the  soul  of  man  was  made  to  feel, — then  surely 
they  carry  their  own  inspiration  with  them,  and  it 
is  no  wonder  that  the  choicest  men  and  women 
will  so  freely  give  their  time,  their  thought, 
their  sympathy,  and  their  means  to  works  like  these. 

St.  Paul's  sublimest,  most  pathetic  picture  is 
perhaps  that  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  in  which  he  talks  about  the  whole  cre- 
ation groaning  and  travailing  in  pain  together  until 
now,  waiting  for  the  adoption,  the  redemption,  of 
our  body.  Think  what  that  means!  The  world  cen- 
tres  in  and  depends  on  man.  It  is  what  he  makes  it. 
And  man  is  capable  of  being  possessed  by  God, 
filled  with  His  Spirit,  echoing  His  character.    Only 


l82  THE   DOUBLE   CAUSE 

the  hindrance  of  man's  own  unwillingness  and  in- 
completeness delays  God's  occupation  of  his  life. 
Behold,  then,  the  whole  creation  stands  by  and 
waits!  Its  perfectness  depends  on  man's.  When 
will  he  let  God  do  for  him  all  that  God  wants  to  do, 
and  so  become  the  worthy  centre  of  a  new  life  for 
all  the  world?  The  whole  creation  groaneth  and 
travaileth.  The  very  hills  and  trees  cry  out  in  discon- 
tent ;  the  very  beasts  are  eager  and  impatient,  want- 
ing a  nobler  master,  a  master  who  shall  more  realize 
himself  and  his  own  capacity  of  being  filled  with  God. 
Am  I  talking  too  large  ?  Am  I  bidding  you  to 
listen  to  a  voice  of  creation  which  is  too  diffused 
and  vague  for  you  to  hear.  Then  hear  your  own 
creation;  hear  the  little  circle  of  life  by  which  you 
are  immediately  surrounded.  Let  your  family,  your 
shop,  your  school,  your  farm,  your  house,  your 
garden,  cry  out  to  you  in  remonstrance  against 
everything  low  and  sensual  and  ungodlike  in  the  life 
you  live.  Let  them  tell  you  how  much  finer  and 
loftier  they  would  become  if  you  were  all  that  you 
might  be.  It  is  not  for  yourself  alone, — that  were 
too  selfish, — your  whole  creation  groaneth  and  tra- 
vaileth, waiting  for  your  adoption,  waiting  for  you 
to  begin  to  live,  and  to  go  on  and  live  completely 
the  life  of  a  child  of  God. 

May  I  ask  you  to  remember  the  course  by  which 
our  thoughts  have  been  travelling  this  afternoon  ? 
We  saw  the  universal  necessity  that  for  any  true 
change  in  man  there  must  be  a  double  cause.  His 
own  disposition  must  work  with  the  force  external 


THE   DOUBLE    CAUSE  183 

to  himself,  which  sought  to  change  him.  We  saw 
how  even  Christ  owned  this  necessity,  and  allowed 
His  disciple  to  declare  that  it  was  only  through  faith 
in  His  name  that  His  all-saving  name  could  save  the 
world.  Then  we  saw  in  what  profoundly  interesting 
and  critical  position  this  put  man,  standing,  with 
his  power  of  believing  or  of  disbelieving,  between 
God  and  God's  truth  and  God's  blessing  on  the  one 
side,  and  his  own  life  and  the  world's  life — so  empty 
in  themselves,  so  gloriously  full  when  they  are  filled 
with  God — upon  the  other. 

Only  one  word  more  needs  to  be  said.  That 
name  which  is  nothing  to  us  unless  we  believe  in  it, 
has  its  own  blessed  power  to  tempt  our  belief. 
Thank  God! — His  mercy  does  not  stand  afar  off 
waiting  for  us  to  take  it.  It  presses  itself  upon  us. 
The  Guest  whose  coming-in  is  salvation  not  merely 
stands  at  the  door,  but  knocks.  All  that  is  true 
and  need  not,  must  not,  be  forgotten.  And  yet  still 
— still,  here  we  stand,  each  with  the  last  responsi- 
bility of  his  own  life. 

Who  would  be  rid  of  that  responsibility  ?  Who 
would  not  humbly,  earnestly  claim — after  God  has 
done  all  that  God  can  do — after  Christ  with  all  His 
wondrous  love  and  patience  and  suffering  has  made 
His  approaches  to  the  soul,  and  waits  and  listens 
for  the  soul's  reception — who  would  not  claim  then 
the  soul's  own  right  and  duty  itself  to  open  wide 
the  door,  and  say  to  the  waiting  Saviour  and  Mas- 
ter, "  Even  so,  come,  Lord  Jesus!"  and  hear  the 
certain  answer,  "  Lo,  I  come!" 


XI. 

GO    INTO   THE   CITY. 

"  Arise,  and  go  into  the  city,  and  it  shall  be  told  thee  what  thou 
must  do." — Acts  ix.  6. 

It  was  the  critical  day  of  St.  Paul's  life.  The 
miracle  which  made  him  a  servant  of  Christ  was  just 
complete.  He  had  been  thrown  down  from  his 
horse  by  the  splendor  that  outshone  the  noonday, 
and  in  answer  to  the  voice  that  proclaimed  Who  it 
was  that  thus  had  arrested  him,  he  had  just  asked 
the  humble  question,  "  What  wilt  thou  have  me  to 
do  ? "  The  stunned  senses  had  recovered  them- 
selves; and  Paul,  the  man  who  always  had  a  purpose 
and  a  destination,  was  asking  for  the  destination  and 
purpose  of  the  new  life  which  he  felt  had  begun. 
The  promptitude  of  all  Paul's  thought  and  action 
in  his  conversion  was  remarkable.  His  direct, 
straightforward  mind  laid  hold  immediately  of  the 
new  conditions.  We  stop  to  play  about  our  great 
experiences.  We  coax  them  and  watch  over  them ; 
we  hesitate  and  analyze.  But  Paul  went  directly 
to  the  point.  "  I  am  a  new  man.  Now  what  shall 
I  do  with  my  new  life."  The  fact  once  there  it  is 
not  something  to  be  mused  and  pondered  over,  but 
to  be  used.     And  God  replies,  "Arise,  and  go  into 

184 


GO   INTO   THE   CITY  185 

the  city,  and  it  shall  be  told  thee  what  thou  shalt 
do." 

The  city  was  Damascus.  Paul  was  just  within 
sight  of  its  shining  walls.  It  was  the  city  for 
which  he  had  set  out  three  days  ago.  He  was  on 
his  way  thither,  when  the  miracle  arrested  him,  go- 
ing to  seize  the  disciples  of  Jesus  wherever  he  could, 
find  them.  And  now  God  says:  "  Still  go  into  the 
city  where  you  meant  to  go.  Your  route  shall  not 
be  altered.  Your  new  life  must  walk  over  the  same 
road  where  the  old  life  was  walking.  Still  go  into 
the  city,  and  there  it  shall  be  told  thee  what  thou 
must  do."  And  so  Paul  started  out  on  the  old  road 
again,  a  new  man  ;  and,  with  another  spirit  from  that 
which  he  had  expected,  passed  through  the  gate  of 
Damascus,  for  which  through  all  the  hours  of  the 
long  forenoon  his  eyes  had  been  impatiently  search- 
ing in  the  distance. 

A  new  spirit  always  seems  to  demand  new  circum- 
stances. It  is  one  of  the  profoundest  instincts  of 
our  nature.  There  seems  to  you  to  be  something' 
wrong  when  you  go  out  full  of  some  great  experi- 
ence which  has  changed  all  your  inner  life,  and  find 
all  your  outer  life  the  same  that  it  was  yesterday. 
You  could  not  help  fancying  that  it  must  have  al- 
tered, too,  and  there  seems  to  be  something  almost 
insulting  in  its  unchanged  persistency.  You  carry 
out  with  you  a  new  love,  a  great  joy,  a  terrible  sor- 
row, and  can  it  be  that  this  new  stream,  so  overfull, 
must  flow  between  the  same  old  banks  wherein  the 
life,  hitherto  so  meagre,  was  content  to  run!  Can 
it  be  that  with  this  other  heart  you  must  still  meet 


1 86  GO    INTO   THE   CITY 

men  as  you  met  them  yesterday,  talk  with  them  of 
the  same  old  things,  still  do  the  same  business  in 
the  same  shop,  or,  with  the  joy  or  sorrow  burdening 
your  heart,  take  up  the  tools  of  household  drudgery 
and  run  the  family  life  just  as  you  did  before  the  joy 
or  sorrow  came !  Sometimes  it  even  seems  as  if  the 
permanence  of  nature  were  an  insult.  When  we  are 
absorbed  in  our  own  pain  or  pleasure,  the  hills  and 
stars  seem  to  mock  us  with  their  indifference.  The 
poet  cries  out,  petulantly,  "  How  can  ye  chaunt,  ye 
little  birds,  and  I  so  weary,  full  of  care!"  We  find 
that  nature  and  life  will  not  honor  any  such  demand 
of  ours,  and  we  know  that  it  is  best  that  they  should 
not,  but  it  is  natural  for  us  to  ask  it.  It  is  a  sort  of 
witness  of  our  sense  of  the  supremacy  that  properly 
belongs  to  spirit  over  circumstances.  Spirit  is  the 
king,  and  circumstances  only  ought  to  be  the  robe 
he  wears,  suiting  themselves  to  his  figure  and  chan- 
ging with  his  changes.  We  believe  that  some  day 
this  will  come.  In  the  new  heavens  and  new  earth 
wherein  righteousness  is  to  dwell,  circumstances  will 
suit  themselves,  freely  and  fluently,  to  the  condi- 
tions of  the  spiritual  life.  They  will  be  to  the  stiffer 
and  grosser  circumstances  of  this  earth  what  Paul's 
' '  spiritual  body  "  is  to  the  ' '  natural  body  "  of  which 
he  tells  the  Corinthians.  But  now  we  come  to  see 
that  only  by  long,  slow  changes  and  in  most  general 
ways  do  circumstances  adapt  themselves  to  spirit; 
and  we  learn  to  understand  that  spirit  must  triumph 
over  circumstances,  not  by  casting  them  away  and 
making  new  ones,  but  by  overpowering  them  as  they 
are,   compelling  forth    their   richer   capacities   and 


GO   INTO   THE   CITY  1 8/ 

making  them  serve  greater  ends  than  they  have 
dreamed  of.  When  the  artistic  spirit  has  filled  us, 
we  may  not  fling  the  carpenter's  chisel  aside — we 
must  work  with  it  still  and  make  it  carve  our 
statue. 

Of  all  the  new  spirits  that  thus  enter  into  human 
life  and  take  possession  of  it,  the  strongest  and  most 
positive  beyond  all  comparison  is  Christianity. 
There  is  nothing  which  can  happen  to  a  man's  inner 
life  which  can  be  so  much  to  that  life  as  for  the  man 
to  become  a  Christian,  for  him  to  find  and  own  the 
Saviourship  and  Mastership  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
His  gentle  dominion  occupies  a  nature,  and  what 
then  ?  One  of  the  common  phenomena  of  Christian 
experiences  is  this — that  the  new  Christian,  sensible 
of  such  a  new  life  within  him,  looks  for  and  expects 
a  new  life  outside  himself,  and  is  surprised  (if  he  is 
not  almost  disappointed)  when  he  discovers  that  this 
new  experience,  so  wonderful  and  inspiring,  settles 
into  the  midst  of  old  familiar  circumstances.  This 
is  the  feeling  that  has  always  broken  out  in  the  dis- 
position to  make  a  special  and  technical  religious 
life.  The  world,  with  all  its  intercourses,  seems  too 
worldly.  Its  musics  jar  upon  the  new,  exalted 
soul.  Its  sights  seem  sordid  to  eyes  quickened  by 
gazing  into  the  near  face  of  God.  Let  us  open  the 
gates  and  go  away.  Let  us  carry  our  new  life  into 
a  new  world.  Let  us  go  where  the  eyes  and  ears 
shall  see  and  hear  nothing  but  their  own  sacred 
sights  and  sounds.  Who  has  not  felt  the  impulse  ? 
And  everywhere  we  see  it  taking  shape.  The  de- 
vout Romanist  covets  and  seeks  his  monastery,  and 


l88  GO    INTO    THE    CITY 

SO  leaves  the  world.  The  devout  Protestant  with- 
draws into  the  little  circle  of  the  religious  public 
and  devotes  his  life  to  certain  technical  religious 
practices,  and  avoids  the  world's  people  among 
whom  he  used  to  live. 

But  God  will  not  allow  that  impulse  to  find  per- 
fect satisfaction.  He  is  always  forcing  the  new  re- 
ligious life  into  contact  with  the  world.  The  new 
man  must  still  mix  with  the  old  men,  and  touch 
them  closely  in  all  the  pressures  of  our  ever-shifting 
life.  The  circumstances  will  not  be  entirely  altered 
with  the  alteration  of  the  spirit.  With  everything 
that  is  inherently  wicked  in  the  old  occupation  once 
thoroughly  cast  away,  the  soul  then  finds  that  it  is 
to  keep  the  rest  and  grow,  not  out  of  them,  but  in 
them,  and  enlarge  them  as  it  grows,  and  make  them 
fit  for  the  new  work  they  have  to  do  in  ministering 
to  an  ever-enlarging  soul. 

Thus  it  is  with  the  converted  merchant.  The 
mercantile  life  may  be  very  large  or  very  little.  You 
know  both  kinds  of  it.  It  grows  with  the  growing 
of  a  merchant's  soul.  The  young  man,  struggling 
just  for  his  own  ambition  and  advancement,  makes 
one  thing  out  of  business;  and  that  same  man, 
when  his  life  is  enlarged  by  the  dependency  of 
others,  when  he  has  his  home  with  wife  and  children 
to  provide  for,  finds  the  capacity  of  business  to  be 
something  much  larger.  It  can  put  on  new  sacred- 
ness  when  it  is  consecrated  to  such  sacred  needs. 
And  let  that  same  man  be  a  Christian.  Let  the 
needs  of  his  own  nature  and  the  claims  of  charity 
grow  real  to  him,  and  then  again  the  business  life 


GO    INTO   THE   CITY  1S9 

opens  its  new  capacity,  and  lo !  it  can  become  so 
holy  that  the  spiritual  life  may  eat  of  it  as  of  a  sac- 
rament, and  charity  may  strike  the  richest  water  out 
of  its  rugged  rocks.  You  may  take  the  same  truth 
and  see  how  it  is  true  of  your  own  occupation, 
whatever  it  may  be.  Every  occupation  lifts  itself 
with  the  enlarging  life  of  him  who  practises  it.  The 
occupation  that  will  not  do  that  no  man  really  has  a 
right  to  occupy  himself  about.  It  is  bad  even  for 
his  smaller  life  if  it  is  not  capable  of  enlarging  itself 
to  contain  his  life  as  it  grows  larger. 

There  is,  no  doubt,  a  prevalent  and  very  danger- 
ous conception  of  the  separateness  of  the  religious 
life.  Does  it  seem  strange  to  say  that  ?  Can  the  re- 
ligious life  be  too  separate  from  the  world  ?  you  ask. 
And  the  answer  is  easy.  Certainly  not  in  spirit.  To 
come  out  and  to  be  separate  from  every  worldliness 
is  the  absolute  duty  of  the  Christian's  life;  and  this 
separateness  of  spirit  will  of  itself  dictate  and  create 
certain  marked  separations  of  external  life.  Let  all 
Christians  once  be  really  devout  in  heart,  and  soon 
enough  and  clear  enough  we  shall  see  the  marks  in 
their  external  life,  dividing  them  from  the  people 
who  care  nothing  for  what  is  to  them  supremely 
dear.  But  it  is  very  dangerous  to  begin  at  the  other 
end.  It  is  very  dangerous  to  begin  by  looking  for 
external  differences  to  denote  the  Christian  life.  It 
may  do  very  great  harm  if  we  start  by  feeling  that 
the  sign  by  which  we  shall  know  that  a  man  has  be- 
come a  Christian  will  be  a  change  of  the  occupations 
in  which  we  have  always  seen  him  engaged.  I  want 
to  point  out  several  of  these  dangers  which  come,  as 


190  GO    INTO   THE   CITY 

it  seems  to  me,  from  all  attempts  to  make  anything 
like  a  conventional  type  of  external  religious  life 
separate  from  the  healthy  life  into  which  the  natural 
dispositions  of  men  lead  them  to  enter. 

I.  In  the  first  place  it  is  bad  for  the  world.  It 
throws  a  mystery  and  unreality  about  the  whole  idea 
of  religion,  which  keeps  people  from  entering  into 
it,  or  feeling  that  it  belongs  to  them.  One  often 
wonders,  as,  after  some  week-day  service,  he  goes  out 
into  the  streets  and  finds  them  thronged  with  men 
full  of  life  and  intent  upon  their  work,  or  as  he  lays 
down  in  his  study  some  book  of  religious  specula- 
tion and  goes  out  into  the  eager  and  interested 
world,  what  it  is  really  that  these  people  think, 
when  they  give  it  a  moment's  thought  at  all,  of  this 
religion  in  which  his  whole  life  is  bound  up,  of  the 
Church  with  all  her  offices  and  exhortations.  There  is 
a  great  deal  which  makes  him  think  that  the  greater 
number  of  these  men  and  women  have  come  to  re- 
gard the  Church  and  her  religion  as  something  apart 
from  and  almost  inconsistent  with  the  daily  duties 
and  daily  life  in  which  they  find  themselves  engaged. 
The  Christian  acts  to  which  they  hear  religious  peo- 
ple urged  are  acts  wholly  apart  from  their  ordinary 
work.  The  Christian  people  whom  they  hear  most 
praised  are  those  whose  time  is  most  occupied  in 
certain  technical  religious  tasks.  It  is  not  strange 
that  they  should  come  to  think  that  there  are  two 
worlds,  namely, — one  irreligious,  the  world  of  busi- 
ness and  of  social  life,  the  world  where  homes  are 
bright  and  warm,  where  stores  are  busy  and  active 
along  the  crowded  streets;  and  the  other  a  religious 


GO   INTO   THE   CITY  igt 

world,  where  the  churches  are,  where  the  church- 
goers go,  where  psahns  are  sung,  where  life  is  dim 
and  more  subdued,  where  charity  and  almsgiving  are 
the  work  of  men  and  women  different  from  them- 
selves; and  to  think,  too,  that  he  who,  from  being 
an  irreligious  man,  becomes  a  religious  man,  passes 
over  from  one  of  these  worlds  into  the  other,  gives 
up  the  old  and  takes  the  new,  so  that  they  are  sur- 
prised if  afterward  they  meet  him  where  they  used 
to  see  him,  where  the  glow  of  social  joy  is  bright 
and  ruddy,  or  where  the  clatter  of  tumultuous  trade 
is  loud.  Many  men's  ideas  about  religion  are  all 
colored  with  this  sort  of  strangeness.  It  is  to  pack 
up  everything  and  move  away.  It  is  to  cut  adrift 
from  all  that  makes  life  dear  and  real,  and  go  out 
into  a  world  that  is  really  dim,  however  bright  it 
may  be  painted. 

Suppose  that  you  could  get  the  true  idea  into 
those  men, — would  it  not  make  a  difference  ?  Sup- 
pose that  you  could  make  them  see  that  the  newness 
of  the  new  life  must  be  not  in  new  circumstances, 
but  in  a  new  spirit.  As  I  read  really  thoughtful 
men,  I  see  them  discontented  not  so  much  with  the 
things  that  they  are  doing  as  with  the  way  in  which 
they  are  doing  them.  They  feel  that  the  things  are 
really  worth  doing,  if  only  they  could  be  done  up  to 
the  full  measure  of  their  capacity.  The  scholar  be- 
lieves more  and  more  in  the  nobility  of  Learning, 
but  grows  very  discontented  with  the  miserable, 
superficial  way  in  which  he  just  skims  the  surface  of 
her  treasures.  The  thoughtful  trader  believes  that 
Trade  in  its  ideal  is  generous  and  beautiful.      It  is 


192  GO   INTO   THE   CITY 

the  reality  that  he  makes  of  it  by  the  way  in  which 
he  does  it  that  seems  to  him  sordid.  What  shall 
Religion  say  ?  If  she  says,  "  Come  away  from  those 
things.  Take  away  your  interest  in  your  books, 
your  interest  in  your  store,  and  give  them  to  some- 
thing else,"  they  may  not  scoff,  they  may  not  be 
contemptuous,  but  they  are  puzzled  and  lost.  You 
offer  them  a  world  they  cannot  comprehend.  It  is 
all  unreal.  Can  you  not  say — is  it  not  all  right  to 
say:  **  This  is  the  very  thing  religion  has  to  do  for 
you,  to  make  your  books  and  your  store,  your  study- 
ing and  money-getting,  attain  their  full  ideal,  to  fill 
them  out  to  their  complete  capacity,  to  take  their 
sordidness  out  of  them  and  fill  them  with  their  true 
spirit.  It  is  with  you  in  your  occupation  that  re- 
ligion has  to  do,  to  make  you  in  the  highest  sense  a 
scholar,  a  trader  worthy  of  the  name." 

Tell  me,  would  not  such  an  appeal  of  religion, 
made  genuinely,  made  not  for  the  sake  of  catching 
men,  but  genuinely, — would  it  not  give  reality  to 
what  is  to  men  now  so  terribly  unreal  ?  If  we  could 
go  to  a  man  and  say,  "  Come,  love  God  and  fear 
Him.  Be  penitent,  be  obedient";  and  when  he 
said,  "  What  for  ?"  if  we  would  only  answer — not 
"  So  that  you  may  be  something  new  and  wholly 
different  from  what  you  are  "  (he  shakes  his  head 
and  is  all  puzzled  when  you  say  that) — but,  "  So 
that  you  may  be  perfectly  what  you  are  now  so 
wretchedly — a  true  father,  a  true  citizen,  a  true 
man"; — then  we  should  start  a  real  ambition;  and 
then,  perhaps,  by  and  by,  having  mounted  up  to  the 
higher  levels  of  these  characters,  he  would  be  ready 


GO    INTO   THE   CITY  I93 

for  the  revelation  of  some  higher  things  to  be. 
Having  been  thoroughly  a  man  by  his  religion  here, 
he  should  be  able  to  become  a  saint  of  some  untried 
quality  in  some  future  life.  I  think  of  the  great 
Hebrew  people.  There  never  was  a  people  to  whom 
religion  was  so  real,  and,  also,  there  never  was  a 
people  to  whom  religion  was  so  little  an  art,  and 
therefore  mixed  itself  with  all  their  life,  flowed  freely 
into  all  the  structure  of  their  state,  and  ran  through 
all  the  family  existence,  and  found  natural  embodi- 
ment in  the  slightest  and  most  prosaic  acts. 

2.  It  is  bad  for  the  outsider,  then,  for  religion  to 
be  a  technicality,  and  to  seem  to  belong  only  to  cer- 
tain actions.  But  it  is  no  less  bad  for  the  religious 
man  himself.  Here  is  a  Christian  man  who  has 
been  taught  to  think  that  Christian  life  consists  in 
doing  certain  special  things,  not  in  doing  all  things 
in  a  certain  spirit.  He  is  a  Christian  when  he  goes 
to  church.  He  is  not  a  Christian  when  he  lives 
among  his  friends  in  common  intercourse.  But  a 
large  proportion  of  his  life  must  be  spent  in  just  such 
intercourse.  The  special  religious  actions  can  take 
up  only  a  little  part  of  every  day.  And  what  is  the 
result  ?  "Why,  that  the  larger  part  of  every  day  is 
counted  out  of  the  Christian's  Christian  life. 

Do  I  seem  to  make  a  merely  theoretical  difficulty  ? 
Ask  yourself,  I  beg  you.  My  Christian  friend,  is 
it  not  so  ?  Do  you  not  often  live  along,  with  the 
great  part  of  your  life  just  the  same  as  it  would  be 
if  you  had  never  taken  Jesus  for  your  Master,  with 
a  few  moments  or  an  hour  every  day  standing  out 
apart   in   which  you  are   different  from  what  you 


194  GO    INTO   THE   CITY 

would  have  been  unconverted,  because  then  you  are 
at  your  public  worship  or  your  private  prayers  ? 
And  if  some  one  should  question  you  about  it  you 
would  say:  "  I  cannot  be  at  worship  all  the  time;  I 
must  earn  my  bread," — as  if  being  at  worship  were 
religious  and  earning  one's  bread  necessarily  were 
not! 

Some  one  not  long  ago  characterized  "  modern 
Christianity"  as  a  "civilized  heathenism";  and 
the  phrase  took,  and  people  repeated  it  to  one  an- 
other. What  the  phrase  means  seems  to  be  simply 
this:  that  here  we  are,  eighteen  hundred  years  after 
Christ,  still  living  the  same  life  that  the  heathen 
lived  before  Christ  came — the  same  external  life. 
The  Church  has  not  broken  from  the  world.  Men 
are  not  anchorites  and  hermits.  They  are  still 
fathers  of  families,  heads  of  households,  doers  of 
business,  masters  or  servants,  rich  or  poor.  And 
these  they  always  will  be.  Christianity  never  meant 
and  never  tried  to  break  those  first  instincts  which 
go  out  inevitably  into  those  fundamental  institutions 
which  are  older  than  the  Gospel,  because  they  are 
older  than  the  sin  that  made  the  Gospel.  But  if  the 
power  of  Christ,  in  all  these  years,  has  entered  into 
these  eternal  relations  and  filled  out  at  all  their 
shrunk  and  meagre  forms,  if  fathers  are  more  fa- 
therly, and  citizens  come  nearer  to  the  true  ideal  of 
citizenship,  and  masters  are  more  full  of  mercy,  and 
servants  are  more  full  of  faithfulness  than  in  the 
days  before  the  Great  Light  shone,  then  the  real 
change  has  come,  however  imperfectly,  however  far 
yet  from  what  it  ought  to  be.    And  our  modern  life 


GO   INTO   THE   CITY  I95 

IS  not  a  "  civilized  heathenism,"  but  is  coming 
nearer  to  what  some  day  it  is  to  be, — a  Christianized 
humanity;  a  world-wide  expression  of  that  of  which 
the  Incarnation  of  Christ  was  the  first  great  utter- 
ance— the  dwelling  of  God  in  man,  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  in  human  circumstances,  in  human  flesh. 

Is  it  not  good  for  us  to  learn  that  not  on  any 
sacred  ground  where  God  first  speaks  to  us,  nor  on 
ground  like  that,  sacred,  serene,  apart,  unworldly,  is 
where  our  Christian  lives  are  to  be  lived  ?  "  Arise, 
and  go  into  the  city,  and  it  shall  be  told  thee  there 
what  thou  must  do."  Where  men  are  thickest,  and 
these  duties  which  come  of  men's  relationships  to 
one  another  grow  most  complicated  and  multitudi- 
nous, where  experiences  grow  most  plentifully  in 
the  hard-paved,  much-trodden  street,  —  there  is  the 
place  for  the  Christian  to  feed  and  use  his  Christi- 
anity. 

Oh,  how  one  comes  to  love  the  city  !  With  all  its 
wickedness  and  misery,  it  is  the  home  of  life.  With 
all  its  artificialness  and  deafening  roar,  with  all  its 
selfishness  and  meanness  and  brutality,  how  a  man 
comes  year  after  year  to  love  the  great  city  more 
and  more,  because  here  are  men — men  with  their 
ever-crowding  life  making  duties  and  chances  for 
each  other  as  the  ever-crowding  and  unresting  sea 
throws  up  its  sparkles  into  the  sunlight  and  its 
white  crests  of  foam.  It  is  a  joy  and  privilege  to 
live  in  a  great  city, — only  the  city  Christian,  above 
all  others,  needs  to  know  that  his  Religion  must  not 
submit  to  be  shut  in  to  technicalities,  but  must  in- 
sist on  claiming  all  his  life  for  her  own ;  otherwise, 


196  GO    INTO   THE   CITY 

SO  crowding  is  this  world  about  him,  if  she  consents 
to  share  at  all,  she  will  be  cheated  terribly  and  put 
off  with  very  little.  Her  only  assurance  of  getting 
anything  is  to  claim  the  whole. 

3.  There  is  one  way  of  talking  about  our  Church 
activities  which  is  far  too  narrow,  and  may  do  a 
good  deal  of  harm.  There  is  much  talk  nowa- 
days about  "  Church-work."  The  development  of 
Church  schools  and  charities  is  manifold.  The  zeal 
of  the  good  people  who  carry  them  on  is  excellent 
to  see, — we  wish  that  there  were  more  of  them  of 
the  best  kind.  But  the  danger,  I  sometimes  think, 
is  that  the  great  number  of  a  congregation  such  as 
this,  for  whom  it  is  impossible  for  various  reasons 
that  they  should  be  personally  engaged  in  these 
works  of  the  parish,  should  think  that  therefore 
there  is  no  Church-work  for  them.  Church-work 
has  become  a  sort  of  technicality.  Church-workers 
have  become  a  sort  of  caste.  The  true  Church-work 
is  wider  —  wide  as  the  whole  activity  which  the 
Church  inspires.  Wherever  any  man  of  this  con- 
gregation is  doing  anything  honest  or  merciful  out 
of  any  impulse  that  he  has  gathered  here,  he  is 
about  Church-work.  Whenever  any  woman  puts 
the  spirit  of  the  Sunday  collect  or  the  week-day 
meeting  into  her  household,  and  does  her  little  to 
purify  and  Christianize  society,  she  is  a  Church- 
worker. 

The  Church  of  God  we  make  so  narrow!  Some 
limit  it  by  lines  of  ordination  and  some  limit  it  by 
stone  walls,  but  where  does  Christ  see  it  ?  Wherever 
any  of  His  baptized  children  are  doing  any  of  His 


GO   INTO   THE    CITY  197 

work.     You  think  that  you  can  be  of  no  service  in 
the  Church.     Perhaps  you  are  sorry  for  it  and  feel 
almost  ashamed  of  it.     But  certainly  you  can,  even 
the  children  of  you.     There  is  none  too  young  and 
none  too  weak.      Take  any  word  that  we  have  said 
or  sung  to-day,  and  carry  it  with  you  like  the  bread 
of  life  to  some  hungry  heart  this  week;  take  the 
Christ  who  has  manifested   Himself  to  you  to-day, 
and  in  His  power  do  some  helpful  thing  for  some 
of    His  brothers  or  sisters  to-morrow,   and  that  is 
Church-work.     The  Church  grows  by  it  and  Christ 
delights  in  it;  and  some  day   He  will  own  it  with 
these  words  which  are  the  crown  of  all  the  prizes  of 
the  universe:  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto 
one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done 
it  unto  me."     The  Church  of  God  in  its  complete 
perfection  at  the  last  will  be  the  City  of  God,— so 
says  the  Bible  always,  and  there  is  meaning  in  the 
figure,— the  manifoldness  of  life  all  uttering  the  in- 
dwelling God  in  the  city  which  is  the  Church. 

Let  me  take  time  to  say  one  last  word  about  what 
we  must  have  before  the  partial  and  technical  Chris- 
tian life  which  we  live  now  can  pass  into  the  full 
and  universal  life  which  I  have  tried  to  describe. 

We  must  have,  first,  a  deeper  meditativeness  in 
what  we  do.  Our  life  so  learns  to  lack  the  habit, 
that  we  almost  fear  lest  it  should  come  to  lack  the 
power  of  meditation.  There  is  so  little  rest!  There 
is  such  an  unreasoning  passion  for  activity!  And 
so  we  skim  the  surface  of  all  things;  we  never  look 
down  into  their  depths  and  see  the  power  of  help 
and  culture  which  they  might  contain.     We  know 


198  GO   INTO   THE   CITY 

no  more  of  the  real  depth  of  our  own  lives  than  a 
child  who  crosses  a  frozen  lake  knows  how  deep  the 
lake  is.  He  does  not  even  know  that  it  has  a  depth. 
It  seems  all  surface.  But  before  our  life  can  get 
depth  into  it,  it  must  get  God  into  it.  God  is  the 
only  power  that  deepens  lives.  A  life  with  no  in- 
tention of  God  in  it  must  be  shallow.  And  there  is 
no  life  so  hard  and  crusted  that,  if  God  does  enter 
into  it,  He  will  not  break  its  crust  through  and 
deepen  it  to  untold  richness. 

But  the  only  way  that  brings  God  into  our  lives 
is  first  to  have  Him  in  our  hearts.  The  soul  that 
has  Him  finds  Him.  "  To  him  that  hath  shall  be 
given."  The  new  man  takes  the  old  circumstances, 
and,  bringing  God  into  them,  makes  of  them  the 
new  life. 

Arise,  then,  and  go  into  the  city.  It  is  a  word  for 
each  new  Sunday  which  makes  as  it  were  for  us  a 
new  beginning  of  our  lives, — Arise  and  go  into  the 
city.  You  will  find  it  the  old  city  with  the  old 
streets  and  houses.  You  will  find  the  new  weeks 
what  the  old  weeks  were  in  all  their  outward  cir- 
cumstances. But  they  need  not  be  the  same  old 
hopeless,  meagre,  thriftless  things  that  other  weeks 
have  been.  If  you  will  only  carry  into  them  a  new 
light,  they  will  be  new.  If  you  will  only  take 
some  new  resolution,  some  bolder  faith,  best  of  all, 
— nay,  only  good  of  all, — if  you  will  take  Christ  into 
them,  how  new  and  ever-renewing  they  will  be — the 
beginning  of  the  new  heavens  and  new  earth  for 
you,  fresh  already  with  the  everlasting  freshness  of 
eternity. 


XII. 

THE    HOLINESS   OF   DUTY. 

"Wherefore  the  law  is  holy." — Romans  vii.  12. 

St.  Paul,  in  writing  to  the  Jews  and  urging  on 
them  the  Revelation  of  Jesus,  encountered  a  ques- 
tion which  is  universal,  but  which  came  into  special 
prominence  among  them.  It  was  the  question  of 
the  relation  which  the  Law  of  God  holds  to  His  im- 
mediate personal  presence  and  communion.  The 
Jews  had  been  drilled  for  years  to  obey  the  Law 
which  God  had  given  to  them  by  the  hands  of 
Moses.  Now  Christ  had  come  and  said:  "  I  mani- 
fest to  you  the  God  who  gave  the  Law.  Look  at  me 
and  see,  not  His  will  only,  see  Him  Himself, — His 
qualities,  His  holiness,  His  tenderness.  His  love." 
It  was  a  higher  life  of  personal  communion  which 
He  offered,  far  above  the  life  of  obedience  in  which 
they  had  been  living. 

And  at  once  Christ's  coming  made  two  classes 
among  the  Jews.  Some  of  them  rejected  Him  and 
some  accepted  Him.  Those  who  rejected  Him 
said:  "  We  do  not  need  Him.  Moses  is  enough. 
There  can  be  none  greater  than  Moses.  We  do  not 
desire  any  such  spiritual  life  as  He  offers.  Let  us 
do  our  duty.      Let  us  keep  the  Law  and  all  is  well." 

199 


200  THE   HOLINESS   OF  DUTY 

Of  this  class  were  the  better  and  earnest  portion  of 
the  Pharisees.  On  the  other  hand,  among  those 
who  accepted  Christ,  there  were  some  who  said: 
"  Now  Moses  is  obsolete.  A  mere  servile  obedience 
to  law  is  not  for  those  who  have  come  into  personal 
knowledge  of  God  through  His  Son.  We  are  the 
saints.  We  are  above  the  Law."  There  are  various 
indications  of  such  a  perversion  of  the  spiritual  na- 
ture of  Christianity,  precisely  the  same  that  came,  at 
the  spiritual  revival  of  the  Reformation,  among  the 
Anabaptists  of  the  continent  and  of  England.  These 
were  the  two  classes.  One  class  held  the  Law  of 
Moses  to  be  absolute  and  final,  and  thought  that 
obedience  to  its  minute  details  constituted  all  of  re- 
ligion. The  other  class  believed  that  obedience  was 
a  mere  slavery  when  one  had  been  admitted  to  the 
loftiest  spiritual  experiences.  Against  both  of 
these  classes  St.  Paul  stands  up  with  his  simple  as- 
sertion of  the  holiness  of  the  Law.  "The  Law  is 
holy,"  he  declares.  To  the  first  class  he  says: 
"  Obedience  to  Moses  has  a  spiritual  meaning,  and 
if  you  would  allow  it,  it  would  lead  you  on 
to  Christ."  To  the  second  class  he  says:  "  No 
perception  of  and  sympathy  with  Jesus  can  free 
you  from  the  fundamental  necessity  of  keeping 
God's  Law.  The  Law  and  the  Gospel  belong  to- 
gether. Not  merely  the  Gospel,  but  the  Law, 
is  holy."  Borrowing  his  figure  from  the  sight  that 
they  all  saw  in  the  streets  each  day,  the  slave 
leading  a  little  boy  to  the  teacher's  house,  he  said, 
"  The  Law  was  our  schoolmaster,  to  bring  us  unto 
Christ," 


THE    HOLINESS   OF   DUTY  20I 

Times  have  all  changed,  but  man  is  still  the  same, 
and  this  difference  which  St.  Paul  found  lies  so  deep 
in  human  nature  that  there  are  the  same  two  classes 
still.  There  are  men  of  the  Law  and  men  of  the 
Gospel  still;  that  is,  there  are  men  whose  pervading 
thought  is  duty,  the  doing  of  what  they  think  they 
ought  to  do;  and  there  are  other  men  whose  per- 
vading thought  is  piety,  the  affectionate  and 
spiritual  relation  of  man  to  God.  We  know  them 
both.  The  first  man  never  speaks  of  anything  like 
the  Love  of  God,  never  talks  about  holiness,  never 
struggles  for  spiritual  experience,  but  he  is  always 
looking  for  what  is  right  and  doing  it.  The  other 
man  dwells  much  on  the  soul's  life,  loves  God,  and 
knows  that  God  loves  him,  prays,  reaches  out  after 
divine  communion.  And  each  of  them  is  liable  to 
the  narrowness  of  his  own  kind.  One  of  them 
makes  nothing  of  spiritual  experience,  and  says: 
"  To  do  his  duty — that  is  what  a  man  is  for.  Let 
him  do  that,  lovingly  or  unlovingly,  believingly  or 
unbelievingly,  and  there  is  the  limit  of  his  nature." 
The  other  always  tends  to  count  duty  as  low  and 
says:  "  Commune  with  God.  Be  right  at  heart. 
The  outward  act  is  of  small  moment."  This  man 
calls  the  first  man  "  moralist  ";  and  the  first  answers 
back  by  calling  him  "  pietist."  It  is  the  oldest 
among  all  the  differences  between  earnest  men.  It 
has  its  origin  in  deep  differences  of  character.  And 
it  calls  for  a  constant  assertion  about  all  duty  of 
what  St.  Paul  asserted  about  the  Law  of  Moses — 
that  duty  leads  to  piety  and  that  no  piety  is  true 
which  has  not  the  vigor  of  duty  in  it.    The  holiness 


202  THE   HOLINESS   OF   DUTY 

of  duty  is  a  deep  truth  which  both  the  moralist 
and  the  pietist  need  to  know. 

I  want  to  speak  about  that  truth  to-day.  I  want 
to  preach  of  duty  in  its  relation  to  religion.  I  think 
there  are  a  great  many  of  you  who  are  trying  to  do 
your  duty,  who  almost  anxiously  disown  having 
anything  to  do  with  religion.  I  want  to  show  you, 
if  I  can,  that  the  two  cannot  be  separated. 

There  are,  then,  three  possible  powers  by  which 
the  action  of  mankind  is  governed.  They  are  the 
Law  of  Nature,  the  Perception  of  Right,  and  the 
Love  of  God.  Government  by  the  first  power  we 
call  Impulse,  by  the  second,  Duty,  by  the  third, 
Religion.  And  each  of  these  has  its  tendencies 
towards  the  fuller  government  that  follows  it.  Im- 
pulse, proving  its  insufficiency,  gives  way  to  Duty; 
and  Duty,  likewise  finding  the  limit  of  its  power, 
passes  into  Religion.  Either  of  the  first  two  that 
refuses  to  lead  on  to  its  successor,  and  counts  itself 
the  final,  perfect  government  of  man,  fails  and  be- 
comes corrupt.  If  we  insist  on  living  by  nothing 
but  Impulse,  Impulse  immediately  loses  its  sacred- 
ness  and  becomes  passion  and  waywardness;  if  we 
will  own  nothing  higher  than  the  power  of  Duty, 
which  is  conscience,  conscience  itself  fails  us,  either 
by  growing  weak  and  indulgent,  or  by  growing  so 
hard  and  rigid  that  the  passions  rebel  against  it  and 
there  is  terrible  anarchy  within.  The  first  growth, 
the  growth  of  Impulse  into  Duty,  is  told  in  that  lofty 
poem  of  Wordsworth,  the  Ode  to  Duty,  the  noblest 
ethical  poem  of  our  language.  There  he  recounts 
his  own  moral  history  in  its  first  stage.      He   tells 


THE    HOLINESS   OF   DUTY  203 

how,  beginning  simply  under  the  direction  of  his 
impulse,  doing  what  he  chose  to  do,  he  came,  not 
to  flagrant  vice,  but  to  the  dissatisfaction  and  rest- 
lessness and  uncertainty  of  having  no  master,  or 
rather  of  having  a  master  who  governed  by  no  law 
that  his  subjects  could  know.  And  then  he  sol- 
emnly gives  himself  into  the  keeping  of  the  higher 
government  of  Duty,  to  do  not  what  he  chose,  but 
what  he  knew  was  right,  and  declares  the  peace  and 
light  that  he  expects  by  such  a  change  of  mastery : 

Stern  Lawgiver  !  yet  thou  dost  wear 

The  Godhead's  most  benignant  grace  ; 
Nor  know  we  anything  so  fair 
As  is  the  smile  upon  thy  face  : 

Flowers  laugh  before  thee  on  their  beds, 

And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads  ; 

Thou  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong. 

And  the  most  ancient  heavens,  through  thee,  are  fresh  and  strong. 

To  humbler  functions,  awful  Power  ! 

I  call  thee  :  I  myself  commend 
Unto  thy  guidance  from  this  hour, — 
Oh,  let  my  weakness  have  an  end  ! 
Give  unto  me,  made  lowly  wise, 
The  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  ; 
The  confidence  of  reason  give  ; 
And  in  the  light  of  truth  thy  bondman  let  me  live. 

That  is  the  first  great  step  in  moral  life— from 
Impulse  into  Duty.  I  hope  that  there  are  many  of 
you  who  have  taken  it.  I  trust,  as  I  look  into  these 
young  people's  faces,  that  I  am  looking  upon  many 
who,  having  "  tired  of  unchartered  freedom"  and 
"felt  the  weight  of  chance  desires,"  have  com- 
mended themselves  to  the  guidance  of  the  "  awful 


204  THE    HOLINESS   OF   DUTY 

power"  of  duty,  and  are  trying  everywhere  to  do 
what  is  right.  And  now  I  want  to  impress  it  upon 
you  that  this  is  not  the  end,  that  this  Duty  is  not 
the  ultimate  and  original  governor  of  the  human 
soul,  that  she  is  the  "  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God," 
that  she  gets  its  holiness  from  her  relationship  to 
Him,  and  that  no  man  has  fully  honored  or  obeyed 
Duty  who  has  not  seen  in  her  the  authority  and 
beauty  of  her  Father,  God. 

All  this  appears  in  various  ways.  And  first  of  all, 
I  think,  in  a  certain  struggle  of  duty  towards  per- 
sonality. See  what  I  mean.  It  is  no  doubt  pos- 
sible to  conceive  of  duty  as  perfectly  impersonal. 
The  great  conviction  of  righteousness  may  seem  to 
seize  hold  of  nothing  farther  back  than  a  strong  cur- 
rent which  runs  mysteriously  through  all  the  world, 
setting  toward  the  good  and  away  from  the  bad. 
There  is  a  certain  grandeur  in  that  abstract,  imper- 
sonal conception.  To  identify  oneself  with  that  cur- 
rent, to  be  borne  on  toward  goodness  by  this 
mysterious  tendency  that  is  in  all  things,  to  be  in 
harmony  with  the  deepest  and  best  movement  of 
the  universe, — I  own  that  that  is  an  ambition  which 
may  illumine  with  its  clear  cold  light  the  heart  of 
man.  We  see  it  sweeping  like  the  power  of  a  voice- 
less, invisible  wind  across  the  world.  Little  and 
great  things  alike  yield  to  it.  To  set  oneself  against 
it  seems  to  be  monstrous.  To  yield  oneself  to  it 
seems  to  be  noble. 

We  own  all  this,  but  then  come  deeper  questions. 
What  is  the  nature  of  this  world-wide  force  ?  All 
force  suggests  the  one  only  primary  source  of  force 


THE   HOLINESS   OF  DUTY  205 

of  which  we  know,  which  is  personal  will.  The 
force  of  gravitation  makes  us  wonder  whether  there 
be  not,  somewhere,  some  one  whose  will  it  is  that 
every  atom  should  seek  every  other  atom.  But  the 
force  of  morality  is  one  that  it  is  far  less  possible  for 
us  to  think  of  as  entirely  impersonal.  It  appeals  to 
the  most  personal  and  self-conscious  part  of  us, — 
our  conscience.  Other  tendencies  we  can,  in  some 
moods,  fancy  to  have  their  lodgment  in  the  very 
material  particles  of  which  the  material  universe  is 
made,  but  of  the  tendency  to  righteousness  our  im- 
agination can  never  picture  that.  It  could  come 
only  from  the  character  of  some  righteous  Being,  ut- 
tering itself  in  the  processes  of  the  world  He  gov- 
erns. Let  a  man  own  the  essential  difference  of 
right  and  wrong,  and  let  him  feel  that  the  great 
central  tendencies  of  this  world  are  such  as  to  fos- 
ter the  right  and  to  repress  the  wrong,  and  he  can 
be  no  atheist.  The  fact  of  moral  government  im- 
plies a  moral  governor.  This  is  the  first  expression 
of  the  struggle  of  morality  towards  religion.  This 
is  the  beginning  of  the  holiness  of  duty. 

But,  again,  there  is  another  fact  which  I  would 
call  the  spiritual  siiggestiveness  of  duty.  Let  me 
describe  what  I  mean  by  that.  Every  attempt  to 
do  right  has  a  tendency  to  reveal  to  us  more  spirit- 
ual ways  of  doing  right,  and  our  need  of  spiritual 
helps  in  doing  it.  For  instance,  a  man  determines 
to  be  honest.  He  conceives  honesty  in  its  narrow- 
est and  hardest  form.  It  is  the  mere  paying  of 
debts  to  which  he  has  legally  bound  himself.  It  is 
justice  without  mercy.     I  do  not  say  that  many  a 


206  THE    HOLINESS   OF   DUTY 

man  who  sets  out  to  be  honest  remains  forever  at 
that  point,  never  gets  beyond  that  first  hard,  crude 
justice;  but  I  am  sure  that  when  the  determination 
is  a  truly  moral  one,  when  the  m.an  means  to  be 
honest  solely  because  honesty  is  right,  and  not  be- 
cause honesty  is  profitable,  there  is  a  perpetual  and 
beautiful  tendency  of  his  honesty  to  deepen  and  re- 
fine itself.  He  is  always  being  urged  on  to  see  that 
the  truly  honest  man  not  merely  pays  his  notes,  but 
honors  the  unwritten  rights  of  all  his  brethren,  is 
bound  to  give  them  what  they  cannot  claim,  must 
have  a  perfect  truthfulness  of  heart  as  well  as  of 
word.  So  the  ambition  of  honesty  grows  within 
him  until  it  includes  all  tenderness  and  truth.  It  is 
a  condition  of  the  soul  and  not  a  habit  of  the  life. 
If  it  were  a  mere  habit  of  the  life,  it  might  be  made 
by  drill  and  discipline.  If  it  be  a  spiritual  condi- 
tion, it  can  be  reached  only  by  spiritual  inspiration. 
And  so  the  man  who,  seeking  honesty,  began  by 
making  a  resolution  that  he  would  not  steal,  by  and 
by,  when  he  recognizes  the  infiniteness  of  the  task 
he  has  begun,  is  seen  with  hands  reached  out  after 
spiritual  help,  crying,  "  Make  me  a  clean  heart,  O 
God,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me." 

Or  take  the  duty  of  charity.  You  begin  by  giv- 
ing a  dollar  to  a  poor  man,  because  you  ought  to. 
That  satisfies  you  at  first.  That  is  the  highest  no- 
tion of  the  duty  of  charity  which  you  have  reached. 
But,  bear  me  witness,  O,  my  friends,  how  the  ex- 
pansive nature  of  that  duty  opens!  By  and  by  you 
see  that,  not  by  giving  the  dollar,  only  by  giving 
yourself,  can  you  satisfy  its  claims.     A  keen,  warm 


THE   HOLINESS   OF  DUTY  207 

sympathy  that  makes  your  brother's  need  your  own 
— nothing  short  of  that  is  really  charity.  And  to  do 
that  charity  you  must  have — before  you  know  it  you 
find  yourself  praying  for  the  Spirit  of  Him  who 
gave  Himself  for  us,  who  for  oursakes  became  poor. 
That  is  what  I  meant  by  the  spiritual  suggestiveness 
of  duty.  Every  duty  presses  out  and  demands  its 
highest  motive  and  its  fullest  action.  It  must  have, 
therefore,  the  highest  help.  It  becomes  infinite 
and  claims  God.  In  that  tendency  of  it  lies  another 
element  of  the  holiness  of  duty. 

But  there  is  one  thing  more.  Duty  leads  men 
into  the  presence  of  God,  is  the  schoolmaster  to 
bring  us  to  Christ  even  more  by  its  failures  than  by 
its  triumphs,  even  more  by  what  it  cannot  do  than 
by  what  it  lacks.  What  Duty  lacks  is  the  power  of 
repair  and  restoration.  I  do  not  know  what  limit 
there  is  to  the  career  over  which  the  power  of  Duty 
might  carry  a  man  who  was  perpetually  obedient, 
and  never  fell.  Her  hands  are  on  his  shoulders  al- 
ways. She  guides  him  along,  and  hurries  him  from 
virtue  into  virtue.  The  course  in  which  she  leads 
him  grows  more  and  more  spiritual.  He  is  amazed 
and  fascinated  at  the  new  visions  of  goodness  that 
she  opens  to  him.  Hand  in  hand  the  man  and  Duty, 
the  man  led  by  Duty,  they  go  sweeping  along,  tri- 
umphant, almost  defiant,  in  their  strength.  So  all 
goes  well,  till  the  man  falls.  He  is  disobedient. 
He  sins.  And  then  how  everything  is  changed! 
Then  Duty's  power  to  help  him  is  gone.  Nay,  it  al- 
most seems  as  if  her  will  to  help  him  is  gone.  She 
who  led  him  stands  over  him,  as  he  lies  there;  she 


208  THE    HOLINESS   OF   DUTY 

cannot  raise  him  up;  she  seems  almost  pitiless  as 
she  looks  down  upon  him  and  says:  "  You  are  not 
what  I  thought  you.  I  did  not  know  how  weak  you 
were.  I  can  do  nothing  more  for  you.  Some  one 
stronger  than  I  must  help  you."  And  then,  in  that 
weakness  which  Duty  has  made  manifest,  but  cannot 
cure,  the  man  reaches  past  the  exacting  Duty  to  the 
forgiving  and  restoring  God.  O,  my  dear  friends, 
if  you  have  ever  struggled  bravely,  enthusiastically, 
and  then,  in  breaking  down  and  sinning,  have  dis- 
covered that  you  needed  something  which  struggle 
could  not  give  you,  then  you  know  what  all  this 
means.  You  look  back  on  that  old  struggle,  and  it 
seems  beautiful  and  sacred  to  you;  but  its  chief 
beauty  and  sacredness  in  your  eyes  is  this — that  it 
showed  you  your  weakness  and  sent  you  to  the 
strength  of  God  to  get  what  it  could  not  give.  As 
Duty  stands  upon  the  farther  limit  of  her  power,  and 
sends  the  soul,  for  which  she  can  no  longer  do  what 
the  soul  needs,  to  Christ, — there  is  where  Duty  in 
her  failure  is  noblest,  and  shows  her  completest 
holiness. 

These,  then,  are  the  holy  tendencies  of  trying  to 
do  right.  No  man  really  enters  on  that  struggle 
but  before  him  there  loom  up,  dim  and  beautiful  in 
the  distance  towards  which  his  face  is  set,  the  high- 
est attainments  of  the  spiritual  life.  They  are  not  to 
be  reached  by  the  mere  powers  which  that  struggle 
involves.  They  require,  as  we  have  seen,  that  that 
struggle  should  show  its  incompleteness,  and  should 
fail,  in  order  that  other  powers  may  be  found  needed 
and  be  summoned  to  the  soul's  help.     But  still. 


THE   HOLINESS   OF   DUTY  J09 

partly  by  what  it  is  to  bring  itself,  and  partly  by 
what,  through  its  manifested  incompleteness,  it  is  to 
set  the  man  to  seeking  somewhere  else,  the  struggle 
after  righteousness  is  the  gateway  to  the  profound- 
est  spiritual  life. 

How  shall  we  think  about  the  man  of  duty,  the 
moral  man,  as  he  is  commonly  called  ?  First  of  all, 
we  must  define  him  clearly  to  ourselves.  We  must 
not  give  the  name  where  it  does  not  belong.  He 
is  not  a  moral  man  who  simply  falls  in  with  right 
practices  because  they  are  the  settled  standards  of 
the  community  he  lives  in,  or  because  on  the  whole 
he  perceives  that  they  tend  to  a  man's  prosperity. 
A  very  large  part  of  the  confusion  which,  in  other 
days  more  than  now,  has  broken  out  in  pulpit  de- 
nunciations of  what  were  called  "  merely  moral 
men,"  came,  I  think,  just  in  this  way — by  allowing 
the  name  to  men  who  were  not  moral  men  at  all.  A 
man  is  not  a  good  man  simply  because  he  does  good 
things.  The  moral  man  is  he  who  does  good  things 
because  they  are  good,  who  loves  righteousness  for 
itself,  who  obeys  his  conscience,  who  is  willingly 
and  heartily  in  the  power  of  the  current  which  sets 
through  and  under  all  things  to  uprightness,  the 
man  who  means  and  tries  to  be  good.  Of  such  a 
man  all  that  I  have  said  is  true.  He  is  always  be- 
ing led  towards  the  thought  of  a  personal  God.  He 
is  always  discovering  on  some  new  side  the  infinite- 
ness  and  spirituality  of  duty.  He  is  always  finding 
that  as  duty  becomes  more  spiritual  he  needs  more 
manifestly  a  spiritual  helper.  And  as  his  eflforts 
fail  he  is  always  being  driven  to  seek  a  Saviour,  some 


2IO  THE    HOLINESS   OF   DUTY 

one  who  can  rescue  and  repair  his  life.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  any  man  can  be  truly  moral  and  yet  be 
merely  moral.  His  struggle  to  do  right  must  bring 
him  into  the  Divine  Presence.  "  I  will  wash  mine 
hands  in  innocency,"  says  David,  "  and  so  will  I  go 
to  Thine  altar";  or  as  our  Lord  Himself  declared, 

If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of  the 
doctrine."     That  is  the  holiness  of  duty. 

This  connection  between  the  moral  and  the  spir- 
itual life  is  the  key  to  all  the  history  of  the  Jews  and 
gives  it  all  its  interest.  We  ordinarily  say  that  the 
Old  Testament  history  was  a  preparation  for  the 
Messiah,  the  Law  made  ready  for  the  Gospel. 
That  is  true,  but  that  is  not  all.  It  was  not  simply 
that  for  two  thousand  years  God  was  preparing  for 
an  event  which  only  came  when  those  two  thousand 
years  were  over.  It  was  that  all  through  those  two 
thousand  years  the  Law  of  God  was  leading  souls  on 
into  the  Gospel  which  all  the  time  was  awaiting 
them.  It  was  that  always  Moses  was  the  door  by 
which  men  came  to  a  Christ  who  was  always  pres- 
ent. Through  all  those  years,  as  any  man  tried  to 
do  what  was  right,  the  doors  of  spirituality  opened 
before  him,  and  he  entered  into  some  knowledge  of 
the  spiritual  redemption.  David  said:  "  O,  how  I 
love  thy  Law";  and  straightway  he  was  led  on  to 
all  those  Psalms  which  are  full  of  the  anticipated 
spirit  of  Christianity.  Obedience  and  spiritual  vision 
brighten  and  darken  together  in  perfect  correspon- 
dence— that  is  the  beauty  of  the  Old  Testament. 
"  The  path  of  the  just  is  as  a  shining  light  which 
shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day."    And 


THE   HOLINESS   OF    DUTY  211 

when  at  last  the  supreme  spiritual  manifestation 
came,  and  Christ  appeared,  it  was  because  the  Jews 
had  disobeyed  the  moral  Law  that  they  rejected  the 
spiritual  Gospel.  In  the  description  of  our  Lord's 
own  parable,  it  was  because  the  laborers  had  seized 
the  vineyard  for  themselves  that  they  killed  the 
owner's  son  who  came  to  claim  it. 

I  think  it  is  an  interesting  and  a  profitable  specula- 
tion to  consider  what  would  come  to  pass  if  every- 
thing we  call  "religion"  were  to  disappear  from  the 
earth  to-day,  and  only  conscience,  only  duty,  should 
be  left  behind.  It  is  what  some  people  seem  to  de- 
sire. Imagine  everything  that  belongs  to  the 
thought  of  God — all  love  to  Him,  all  trust,  all  appli- 
cation for  forgiveness — nay,  even  the  knowledge  of 
His  existence,  to  be  taken  away,  and  what  is  left  is 
conscience,  the  sense  of  right,  and  the  impulse  to 
do  right  which  is  in  the  human  heart.  What  would 
the  consequence  be  ?  I  think  there  is  no  doubt. 
Either  the  conscience  would  be  swept  away,  unable 
to  stand  alone,  and  mankind  become  a  race  of  dev- 
ils; or  else  conscience  in  its  sore  need  would  reach 
out  its  hands  into  the  darkness  and  find  for  itself  re- 
ligion. We  fear  the  first  alternative;  we  fear,  with 
almost  certain  apprehension,  that  what  would  come 
would  be  the  moral  devastation  of  the  race.  But,  if 
in  any  way  conscience  proved  itself  too  strong  for 
that,  then  it  would  be  a  most  interesting  sight  that 
we  should  see.  The  race  would  try  in  all  its  best 
parts  to  obey  this  mysterious  monitor  within.  Men 
here  and  there  and  everywhere  would  be  found  try- 
ing to  do  right,  not  for  any  clear  reason  they  could 


212  THE   HOLINESS   OF   DUTY 

give  you,  but  because  something  within  them  told 
them  it  was  the  thing  for  a  man  to  do.  But  by  and 
by,  not  starting  from  any  one  man's  bold  guess,  but 
growing  up  as  a  misgiving  and  a  hope  in  countless 
hearts, — as  when  before  the  sunrise  millions  of  half- 
awakened  particles  of  air  are  filled  with  dim  sus- 
picions of  the  coming  sun, — there  would  be  found 
moving  among  men  the  thought,  struggling  into  a 
belief,  that  all  this  impulse  of  righteousness  must  be 
the  echoing  will  of  some  righteous  One, — the  first 
conception  of  a  God.  And  then,  as  Conscience  went 
on,  she  would  find  the  duties  to  which  she  gave  birth 
outgoing  her.  They  would  put  forth  wings  and  fly 
where  she  could  not  follow  them.  And  so  their  new 
needs  would  begin  to  guess  at  new  supplies.  Since 
here  are  spiritual  tasks,  somewhere  there  must  be 
spiritual  help. 

And  then  would  come  failure  and  sin.  Conscience 
would  prove  too  weak.  Her  power  would  break, 
and  yet  her  will  would  still  be  undiscouraged.  Un- 
able to  give  up  her  great  attempt,  and  yet  finding 
in  herself  no  power  of  repair,  it  is  inconceivable  that 
she  should  not  with  one  bold  leap,  bracing  herself 
for  it  on  the  divinest  instincts  that  she  found  in  man 
toward  his  fellow  -  man,  ^z^r^j  at  forgiveness.  She 
could  not  tell  its  method.  She  could  not  invent  for 
herself  the  divine  wonder  of  the  Cross;  but  some- 
how, somewhere,  she  must  hope  that  pardon  and 
repair  were  waiting,  and  in  the  dim  smoke  of  some 
altar  she  must  send  up  her  hope  towards  heaven — a 
God,  a  Guide,  a  Saviour.  These  would  be  her 
dreams,  forced  on  her  by  the  overwhelming  necessi- 


THE    HOLINESS   OF   DUTY  21 3 

ties  of  the  task  she  had  undertaken.  And  these  are 
rehgion. 

If  among  such  a  race  there  stood  some  keen  ob- 
server, some  one  who  knew  of  the  old  religion  which 
had  been  taken  out  of  the  race  to  make  room  for 
this  experiment  of  "  mere  morality,"  and  who  had 
seen  it  go  with  pleasure,  how  familiar  would  appear 
to  him  these  thoughts  and  hopes  as  they  issued  from 
the  heart  of  this  struggling  human  nature — a  God, 
a  Guide,  a  Saviour!  "Ah !  "  he  would  say,  "  Here 
are  the  old  superstitions  back  again.  The  eradica- 
tion could  not  have  been  quite  complete.  Some 
roots  must  have  been  left  below  when  the  tree  was 
cut  down  to  the  ground."  But  no!  That  is  not 
it.  It  would  be  something  far  more  significant  than 
that.  It  would  be  the  holiness  of  duty  declaring 
itself.  It  would  be  the  human  conscience  by  its  di- 
vine necessity  claiming  religion. 

And  why  should  not  that  be  true  in  a  man  which 
is  true  in  a  race?  If  all  religion  seems  to  be  gone  out 
of  a  man,  if  nothing  spiritual  lights  up  his  life,  what 
will  you  do  ?  Pray  for  him  ?  Yes,  pray  with  all 
your  might,  with  all  your  heart.  But  what  will  you 
try  to  get  him  to  do  ?  First  of  all,  most  of  all,  to 
do  his  duty,  the  duty  that  he  sees.  That  duty, 
thoroughly  done,  must  bring  him  into  sight  of  God. 
There  are  a  thousand  cases  where  the  unwillingness 
to  do  some  right,  the  clinging  to  some  old  known 
sin,  is  what  hinders  the  man  from  all  the  richness  of 
the  spiritual  life.  The  giving  up  of  the  sin  will  not 
make  the  man  spiritual.  It  is  not  taking  off  the 
stone  that  makes  the  grass  grow  where  it  lay  ;  it  only 


214  THE    HOLINESS   OF   DUTY 

lets  the  grass  grow.  Here  is  perhaps  the  secret  of  the 
spiritual  bh"ght  that  is  upon  your  life.  Oh,  if  you 
are  not  spiritually  minded,  do  not  wait  for  myste- 
rious light  and  vision.  Go  and  give  up  your  dearest 
sin.  Go  and  do  what  is  right.  Go  and  put  yourself 
thoroughly  into  the  power  of  the  holiness  of  duty. 

We  have  reached,  then,  what  is  the  beginning  of 
light  in  all  the  darkness  of  the  moral  world.  That 
darkness  meets  us  everywhere.  It  is  a  sign  not  of 
clear-sightedness,  but  of  superficiality  and  blind- 
ness, when  a  man  says  lightly  and  easily  that  all  the 
world  is  clear  to  him,  that  the  thick-crowding  ques- 
tions do  not  trouble  him.  They  trouble  most  men 
sadly.  How  are  the  evil  and  the  good  distributed  ? 
Why,  if  goodness  is  the  only  joy,  is  goodness  made 
so  hard  for  men  to  reach  ?  Why  should  truth  be 
at  once  so  necessary  and  so  uncertain  to  the  hu- 
man soul  ?  What  is  the  meaning  of  all  the  seeming 
failures,  the  attempts  that  never  come  to  anything, 
the  souls  that  earn  a  little  goodness  and  then  lose  it 
all,  the  lives  that  start  upward  and  are  beaten  back 
by  cruel  circumstances  ?  If  there  is  a  God  and  He 
is  good,  why  is  the  world  so  full  of  wretchedness  ? 
I  think  there  is  an  answer  to  every  one  of  these 
questions,  taken  by  itself,  but  all  together  they  come 
flocking  up  about  us,  and  the  air  is  thick  with  them. 
You  can  kill  every  separate  gnat  easily  enough,  but 
the  whole  host  of  them  together  darkens  the  sun. 

It  is  when  the  soul's  light  is  really  darkened  by 
such  questions  that  the  real  holiness  of  duty  is  made 
manifest.  Then  let  Conscience  speak.  Then  listen 
to  her  voice  implicitly.     However  all  these  questions 


THE   HOLINESS   OF  DUTY  21 5 

may  be  answered,  whether  or  not  they  have  an  an- 
swer, it  is  right  to  do  right,  it  is  right  to  be  honest, 
to  be  kind,  to  sacrifice  yourself  for  others,  to  be 
pure.  //  is  wrong  to  do  zurotig.  It  is  wrong  to  be 
cowardly,  or  cruel,  or  dishonest,  or  impure.  Take 
Duty  by  the  hand  and  go  where  she  will  lead  you. 
Then  you  have  one  strong  thing  to  hold  to  in  the 
midst  of  the  confusion. 

If  this  were  all,  if  it  led  to  nothing  more,  it  would 
not  satisfy  us.  Merely  to  go  on  doing  duty,  with 
no  light — nothing  to  which  the  soul  might  fasten  its 
affections,  no  answer  opening  to  its  questions  any- 
where— this  could  not  satisfy  a  man  who  is  both 
soul  and  conscience.  The  satisfaction  comes  as, 
gradually.  Duty  proves  herself  to  be  the  usher  to 
something  greater  than  herself.  It  is  very  strange, 
I  think,  to  see  how  very  apt  any  strong  sense  of 
duty  is  to  become  religious.  I  turned  over  not  long 
ago  the  pages  of  the  Harvard  Biographies,  which 
many  of  you  know,  the  lives  of  the  graduates  of 
Harvard  who  died  in  the  war;  and  I  could  not  but 
be  struck  by  seeing  how  many  of  them,  as  their  life 
grew  deeper  and  more  intense,  became  more  and 
more  religious,  honored  God  as  their  Lord,  trusted 
Him  as  their  Father,  and  made  His  Son  their  friend. 
It  was  not  fear  of  pain  or  death.  They  were  not  that 
kind  of  men.  It  was  that,  stung  to  higher  duty  than 
they  had  known  before,  all  their  best  needs  and 
powers  had  come  out  and,  realizing  the  fulness  of 
the  nature  God  had  given  them,  they  had  found  in- 
deed that  "nor  man  nor  nature  satisfy  whom  only 
God  created." 


fl6  THE  HOLINESS   OF  DUTY 

Suppose  a  moral  man   in   Palestine,    in  Christ's 
days,  in  one  of  those  remote  and  dingy  villages,  a 
man  who,  with  small  light,  with  Pharisees  wearying 
him  with  their  minute  and  meaningless  ceremonial, 
and  with  a  Sadducee  or  two  singing  scepticism  into 
his  ears,  had  still  been  trying  to  do  right.      He  had 
struggled  against  temptation.     He  had  been  sober, 
honest,  kind,  and  pure.     A  hard  life  and  a  noble 
one.     But  now  suppose  that  Christ  comes  through 
that  village,  and,  "  as  His  custom  was,"  the  Saviour 
goes  into  the  little  synagogue  or  stops  under  the 
shadow  of  a  house  and  talks  with  those  who  come. 
As  He  tells  about  His  Father's  house,  about  the 
grace  that  brings  men  back  to  God,  about  the  inex- 
tinguishable love  in  the  Divine  Heart,  about  Him- 
self as  the  Saviour,  and  repeats  perhaps  the  parable 
of  the  prodigal  son;  especially  as  He  stands  there 
by  His  very  presence  offering  Himself  as  the  foun- 
tain out  of  which  whosoever  thirsts  may  drink, — who 
is  the  first  who  feels  His  power  and  answers  to  His 
call  ?     Will  any  one  come  before  that  anxious  man 
who  has  learned  his  needs  by  trying  to  do  his  duty  ? 
We  can  almost  see  his  face  settle  into  the  repose  of 
peace,  and  the  lines  of  his  anxious  questioning  fade 
out  of  it.     Here  is  the  solution  of  his  problems,  the 
satisfaction  of  his  wants.      He  looks  back  and  sees 
how  all  his  struggles  have  been  preparing  for  the 
day  when  he  should  meet  this  Saviour.     The  Law, 
his  schoolmaster,  has  brought  him  to  Christ.     He 
looks  back  and  is  thankful  for  the  holiness  of  duty. 
I  think  that  this  is  just  the  truth  which   many 
people  need.    You  say:  "  I  am  not — I  cannot  be — 


THE    HOLINESS   OF   DUTY  21/ 

religious.  There  is  nothing  spiritual  in  me.  I  can 
do  nothing  holy."  Oh,  you  are  wrong!  God  has  not 
made  any  soul  destitute  of  that  deepest  and  best 
prerogative  of  humanity, — the  power  to  live  by  the 
unseen,  to  worship  and  love  Him.  But  be  you 
wrong  or  right  your  immediate  course  is  clear. 
However  you  may  think  that  holiness  is  closed  to 
you,  duty  is  open.  You  can  do,  to-day  and  to-mor- 
row, what  you  know  you  ought  to  do.  And  O,  my 
friend,  remember  that  as  long  as  you  do  not  go  in 
through  that  first  and  outmost  vestibule,  you  have 
no  right  to  complain  that  you  do  not  reach  the  in- 
most chamber.  As  long  as  you  are  leaving  plain 
duty  undone,  you  have  no  right  to  say  that  you 
cannot  be  religious. 

There  is  great  beauty  in  the  dignity  with  which 
this  truth  clothes  the  ordinary  things  of  life.  Duty 
is  busied  with  small  things.  But  to  the  things  which 
Duty  works  with  she  imparts  her  own  holiness. 
When  her  work  is  perfect  and  she  has  brought  her 
souls  to  the  completeness  of  Christ,  they  must  look 
back  and  see  a  sacredness  in  everything  over  which 
they  once  conquered  a  temptation  and  made  them- 
selves do  what  they  did  not  want  to,  but  knew  they 
ought  to.  And  as  any  promise  of  that  consumma- 
tion opens  to  them  now,  they  must  already  see  some 
beginning  of  that  sacredness  in  the  material  on 
which  their  daily  task  is  done. 

"The  Law  is  holy."  Count  your  law  holy. 
See  what  your  duty  is,  and  count  that  duty  sacred. 
Let  no  hardness  or  sordidness  upon  the  face  of  it 


2l8  THE   HOLINESS   OF   DUTY 

blind  you  to  the  great  and  blessed  things  which  it 
can  do  for  your  soul, — and  will,  if  you  will  only  let 
\t.  First  give  yourself  to  it  completely.  Do  it 
with  all  your  strength.  And  then  let  it  lead  you 
beyond  yourself.  Or  let  it  introduce  you  to  your 
deeper  self,  to  the  needs  and  powers  which  require 
and  can  appropriate  Christ.  Let  it  bring  you  to  the 
help  of  the  Mercy  Seat  and  the  pardon  of  the  Cross. 
Duty  shall  never  pass  away.  The  hardness  will 
be  all  gone  out  of  it  in  heaven.  But  still  there  we 
shall  do  the  right  because  we  know  we  ought  to  do 
it;  and  thereby  we  shall  be  made  more  and  more 
capable  of  the  knowledge  and  the  love  of  God  to  all 
eternity. 


XIII. 

PEACE  WHICH  PASSETH    UNDERSTAND. 
ING. 

"  The  peace  of  God,  which  passeth  all  understanding." — Philip- 
PIANS  iv.  7. 

When  a  man  of  disorderly  and  loose  ways  of 
thinking  becomes  excited,  he  will  deal  in  mere  ex- 
aggeration; but  an  orderly  and  clear  thinker,  the 
more  earnest  he  becomes,  will  make  all  the  clearer 
discriminations  and  use  words  with  all  the  more 
definite  meanings.  St.  Paul  was  very  much  in 
earnest  when  he  said  these  words.  He  was  invok- 
ing a  rich  blessing  on  his  best-beloved  disciples. 
And  it  seems  to  us  perhaps,  at  first,  as  if  it  was 
merely  a  glowing  and  beautiful  hyperbole  when  he 
desired  for  them  "  the  peace  which  passeth  all  un- 
derstanding." The  words  charm  us  with  their  ca- 
dence; and  the  idea  as  we  vaguely  discern  it  seems 
very  rich, — a  peace  so  deep,  so  high,  so  still,  that 
no  one  can  know  how  deep  and  high  and  still  it  is, — 
a  surpassing,  a  transcendent  peace, — this  is  what  he 
seems  to  be  asking  for  his  friends.  But  that  is  not 
like  Paul.  He  meant  always  something  accurate. 
He  loved  preciseness  of  thought,  and  it  was  one 
sign  of  his  greatness  of  mind  that  he  could  keep  his 

219 


220   PEACE   WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING 

thought  clear  and  sharp  even  when  it  was  glowing 
with  feeling.  It  was  not  blurred  by  its  warmth  and 
fire.  He  meant,  then,  by  the  "peace  which  passeth 
all  understanding  "  not  merely  a  certain  degree,  but 
a  certain  kind,  a  certain  quality  of  peace.  I  want  to 
study  his  expression  with  you  and  see  if  we  can 
know  what  he  is  talking  of.  If  we  can,  we  shall  do 
well;  for  this  "peace  which  passeth  all  understand- 
ing" is  really  the  whole  Christian  life  seen  from  one 
of  its  richest  and  completest  sides. 

Peace  is  the  under-desire  of  all  work  and  life. 
No  matter  what  struggle  men  are  involved  in,  and 
no  matter  how  much  men  enjoy  their  struggle, 
there  always  is  below  their  labor  a  wish  for  peace, 
a  sense  that  peace  is  the  final  and  ideal  condition  of 
all  things.  No  man  who  has  crossed  the  border  of 
barbarism  or  who  has  any  idea  of  life  above  that 
of  a  bandit  and  a  robber,  will  ever  dare  openly  to 
proclaim  that  tumult  and  confusion  and  war  are  the 
true  and  permanent  conditions  for  humanity  to  live 
in.  The  soldier  delights  in  war  and  chafes  at  the 
very  thought  of  stagnant,  peaceful  days,  but  still 
he  dares  propound  no  theory  except  that  war  is 
a  temporary  thing,  the  purifier  of  corruption,  the 
settler  of  old  quarrels,  and  so  the  true  builder  of  a 
higher  peace.  The  reformer  shakes  the  foundations 
of  old  institutions,  but  his  plea  must  always  be  that 
he  seeks  to  dig  deeper  and  lay  stronger  the  great 
stones  on  which  he  may  construct  the  new.  The 
sceptic  touches  with  his  withering  finger  the  fair- 
ness of  a  soul's  belief  and  brings  confusion  where 
there  used  to  be  the  placidness  of  an  accepted  creed, 


PEACE    WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING   221 

but  hardly  any  thinker  has  ventured  to  praise 
scepticism  as  the  true  resting-place  (or  floating- 
place)  of  a  human  spirit.  The  disturbance  of  faith 
always  claims  to  be  in  order  to  a  readjustment  of 
faith.  So  everywhere  peace  and  not  war  is  the  de- 
sire,— nay,  peace  is  the  under-desire  out  of  which 
war  springs.  War  is  the  means,  peace  is  the  end. 
There  maybe  always  tumult  about  us  here;  but, 
whether  men's  dispositions  make  them  look  back  or 
forward,  they  always  discern  peace  in  the  distance 
— a  Golden  Age  behind  or  a  Millennium  before. 

And  this  universal  desire  of  peace  is  the  reason 
why  men  have  pictured  it  so  differently  to  them- 
selves. What  all  men  wish  and  no  man  completely 
has,  each  man  will  image  to  himself  after  his  own 
character.  It  is  the  universal  ideals  of  the  race — 
Freedom,  Strength,  Peace — which  have  been  most 
variously  conceived,  and  so  most  often  misconceived. 
This  is  the  reason  why  the  sources  and  the  character 
of  peace  are  so  differently  pictured  by  different  men, 
and  by  different  men  at  different  stages  of  their 
•lives.  Now,  as  we  think  of  St.  Paul's  life,  we  can 
see  that  there  must  have  been  two  different  ideas 
of  peace — that  is,  of  repose  and  entire  satisfaction — 
in  his  mind  at  different  periods  of  his  career;  and  a 
comparison  of  these  two  will  give  us  at  once  the 
fundamental  idea  of  what  he  said  to  his  Philippians. 
Paul  appears  to  us  first,  you  remember,  as  a  Jewish 
student.  In  the  Gamaliel  period  of  his  life  his  ob- 
ject was  to  learn.  Truth,  as  it  could  be  brought  to 
the  understanding,  was  the  object  of  his  appetite; 
and  when  he  looked  forward  and  thought   of  the 


222    PEACE   WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING 

ideal  of  life,  it  was  of  a  mind  which,  having  studied 
abstract  truth  and  human  nature  and  the  Word  of 
God,  had  adjusted  all  their  relations,  settled  every 
question,  and  understood  the  whole.  By  and  by 
there  happened  a  great  change  in  his  life  and  he  be- 
came the  servant  of  Jesus  Christ.  A  new  ambition 
opened  to  him,  a  new  appetite  was  stirred.  The 
heart  and  the  spiritual  nature  asserted  their  su- 
premacy; and  now  the  peace  which  loomed  in  sight 
and  gradually  closed  around  and  filled  his  life  with 
its  promise,  was  the  rest  of  the  nature  upon  that 
new  Master  in  dependence  and  in  loyalty. 

These  were  the  two:  Paul  the  young  student  was 
trying  to  understand  the  world  so  that  he  might 
harmoniously  adjust  himself  to  it,  compel  its  powers 
to  answer  his  demands,  force  it  to  satisfy  his  ambi- 
tions,— it  was  the  mastery  of  his  mind  making  the 
world  his  servant;  Paul  the  Apostle  was  trjnng  to 
get  nearer  to  Christ  by  more  perfect  obedience  and 
love, — it  was  the  heart  fastening  itself  upon  a  per- 
fectness  which  it  loved  and  whom  it  trusted.  Here 
are  two  different  conceptions  of  peace, —  one  of 
mastery,  the  other  of  dependence.  One  is  con- 
quered by  the  mind ;  the  other  is  bestowed  upon 
the  heart.  One  is  within  the  range  of  the  under- 
standing which  analyzes  and  investigates  its 
grounds;  the  other  goes  beyond  or  passes  the  un- 
derstanding and  relies  upon  a  Being  who,  in  un- 
known ways  and  out  of  infinite  resources,  provides 
and  supports  the  entirely  reliant  life. 

As  soon  as  we  contrast  in  any  way  those  resources 
and  helps  which  come  to  men  through  the  intelli- 


PEACE   WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING   223 

gence  and  through  the  heart,  as  soon  as  we  claim 
for  the  heart  a  power  to  lay  hold  on  truth  which 
the  understanding  cannot  grasp,  we  invite  of  course 
the  ready  criticism  of  sentimentalism  and  feebleness. 
But  it  is  needful  to  assert  the  true  dignity  of  the 
human  heart,  to  claim  that,  rightly  conceived,  it  is 
neither  the  jealous  antagonist  nor  the  feeble  ally  of 
the  human  intelligence.  Rightly  conceived,  the 
heart  is  the  completeness  of  the  man,  outgoing  but 
embracing  the  intelligence  and  reason.  The  heart 
cannot  be  truly  given  to  any  work  unless  the  judg- 
ment approves;  but  the  giving  of  the  heart  is  some- 
thing far  larger,  richer,  fuller,  than  the  approval  of 
the  judgment.  You  can  not  truly  love  a  man  unless 
your  intelligence  endorses  him  ;  and  yet  the  endorse- 
ment of  the  intelligence  is  only  the  beginning. 
Then  comes  in  the  love,  and  through  its  warm  at- 
mosphere your  friend  gives  to  you  and  you  give  to 
him  what  never  could  have  passed  back  and  forth 
through  the  cold  medium  of  the  irttelligence.  No; 
the  heart  is  larger  than  the  understanding,  and 
through  it  may  come  messages  and  gifts  which  the 
understanding  has  no  power  to  bring. 

Have  we  not,  then,  already  seen  something  of 
what  the  distinction  is?  There  is  a  peace  within  the 
understanding,  and  there  is  a  peace  that  goes  be- 
yond the  understanding  and  finds  its  warrant  in 
personal  trust  and  love.  The  peace  within  the 
understanding  is  the  result  of  a  clearly  perceived 
proportion  between  need  and  supply,  between 
danger  and  precaution:  "I  have  seen  what  peril  is 
likely  to  occur,  and  I  have  guarded  against  it;  I 


224  PEACE    WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING 

have  found  out  all  the  weak  points  in  my  house 
where  the  fire  or  the  hurricane  might  smite  it,  and 
I  have  strengthened  and  secured  them ;  therefore  I 
may  dismiss  my  anxieties  and  sit  down  at  rest." 

The  peace  which  goes  beyond  the  understanding 
says:  "I  have  done  all  this  as  well  as  I  knew  how, 
but  there  are  regions  of  danger  which  I  cannot  ex- 
plore, there  are  perilous  forces  which  I  cannot 
measure.  The  universe  is  large,  and  out  of  any 
distant  corner  of  it  there  may  come  a  sudden  blow 
striking  right  at  my  life.  Beyond  what  I  can  pro- 
vide for,  then,  I  find  out  Him  who  is  in  all  the  uni- 
verse, and,  loving  Him,  I  trust  myself  upon  His 
love.  It  is  not  knowledge,  now,  of  what  will  come 
or  how  it  can  be  met;  it  is  only  the  sympathetic 
apprehension  of  His  love  and  care  who  is  all-strong, 
all-wise.  This  is  what  I  rest  upon.  This  is  the 
confidence  in  which  I  sleep  by  night  and  work  by 
day." 

It  is  a  peace  which  passeth  understanding  and 
fulfils  itself  in  love. 

It  is  easy  to  comprehend,  because  the  difference 
is  everywhere.  You  are  on  a  great  ocean  steamer, 
and  you  go  through  its  wilderness  of  machinery  and 
see  how  part  is  fitted  into  part  and  every  danger  is 
provided  for.  Perhaps  you  know  enough  about  it 
all  to  understand  how  thoroughly  the  work  is  done, 
and  to  be  sure  that  mechanical  art  can  make  no  bet- 
ter. Then  you  go  and  lie  down  in  your  berth  and 
feel  safe.  But  can  your  safety  come  from  what 
you  have  seen  and  understood?  Must  it  not  come 
finally  from  something  which  you  cannot  see  and 


PEACE   WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING   22 5 

cannot  understand?  The  final  confidence  must  be 
personal  confidence.  It  must  be  on  the  skill  and 
faithfulness  of  the  captain  who  uses  and  commands 
all  this  machinery  that  you  ultimately  rely.  Only 
on  character  finally  can  peace  be  built,  and  while 
we  use  our  understandings  to  discover  characters, 
our  deepest  knowledge  of  them  still  must  come  by 
intuitions  that  surpass  the  reason. 

The  peace  that  lies  within  the  understanding  is 
what  men  are  seeking  everywhere  in  some  of  its 
many  forms.  Think  what  two  or  three  of  them  are. 
In  the  first  place  there  is  the  peace  of  a  sufficient 
fortune.  A  man  says:  "If  I  can  be  rich  I  shall  be 
secure."  He  counts  up  the  dangers  one  by  one: 
"Hunger,  thirst,  cold,  heat,  fatigue,  exposure  — 
yes,  I  can  avoid  them  all  if  I  am  rich.  Money  can 
build  the  house  and  spread  the  table  and  hire  the 
servants.  These  needs  and  money  meet  each 
other."  And  so  the  struggle  begins,  and  the  compe- 
tent fortune  by  and  by  is  earned.  And  what  then? 
All  that  his  understanding  has  anticipated  is  ful- 
filled. He  is  warm  and  dry,  and  has  the  food  that 
he  desires.  The  machine  is  fed  with  its  due  nutri- 
ment and  runs  its  course  perfectly.  Only  this  comes, 
— that  when  a  need  arrives  which  the  mere  under- 
standing has  not  anticipated,  when  the  heart  which 
lies  out  of  the  region  of  the  understanding  lifts  up 
its  voice  and  demands  its  satisfaction,  or  when  the 
conscience  grows  restless  and  exacting — then  this 
adjustment  which  has  been  arranged  between  money 
and  the  animal  wants  fails  and  falls  short.  Here  is 
a  further  need,  and  somewhere   there  must  come 


226   PEACE   WHICH   PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING 

forth  a  further  supply.  And  so  the  town  is  full  of 
rich  men  who  are  not  finding  in  their  riches  the  satis- 
faction which  they  ought  to  find.  They  can  reason 
it  all  out ;  they  ought  to  feel  safe  and  rest  secure, 
but  they  are  all  restlessness.  They  have  earned 
peace,  but  it  does  not  come  to  them.  From  regions 
out  beyond  comes  a  disturbance  and  unrest  for 
which  they  have  made  no  provision. 

This  same  is  true  of  all  the  self-sufficiencies  of  life, 
of  all  the  peace  that  builds  itself  only  on  prosperity. 
A  man  is  thoroughly  well  and  strong,  and  every  re- 
lationship with  all  his  fellow-men  is  bright  and 
happy.  He  lives  with  them  in  that  happy  condition 
in  which  he  never  seems  to  need  their  help,  and  yet 
they  are  always  ready  to  lavish  their  help  upon  him. 
No  care  nor  sickness  seems  to  break  in  on  his  lot. 
He  has  plenty  of  work  to  do,  yet  not  a  work  to 
wear  him  out.  In  bodily  condition  and  in  well- 
adjusted  relationships  he  seems  to  be  fit  for  and 
equal  to  his  task  of  life.  No  doubt  such  a  man  is 
at  peace  up  to  a  certain  line.  His  quiet  home, 
his  calm,  smooth-flowing  days,  proclaim  it.  He 
matches  his  dangers  against  his  power  and  seems 
to  see  how  he  can  meet  them  all.  It  is  the  peace 
of  self-sufficiency.  It  is  a  peace  within  his  un- 
derstanding. 

But  on  what  does  the  permanence  of  that  peace 
depend?  Upon  the  preservation  of  that  balance 
between  the  powers  and  the  dangers.  Every 
glimpse  of  dangers  which  these  powers  cannot 
match,  every  suggestion  of  the  decay  or  loss  of 
these  powers  of  health  and  independence  destroys 


PEACE    WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING    227 

the  balance  instantly.  That  is  what  disturbs  the 
complacency  of  a  prosperous  man  of  the  world  when 
some  great  demand — the  need  of  spiritual  conver- 
sion or  the  necessity  of  death  —  looms  in  his  sight. 
There  is  something  which  is  not  provided  for  in  all 
the  armory  of  his  self-sufficiency.  There  is  a  de- 
mand for  which  his  well-stocked  life  can  furnish  no 
supply.  There  is  a  need  which  goes  beyond  his 
understanding,  and  only  by  a  reliance  which  goes 
beyond  the  understanding,  too,  only  by  reliance  on 
an  Infinite  Person  can  these  infinite  necessities  be 
met. 

All  this  is  plainest,  I  suppose,  with  reference  to 
the  peace  of  the  intellect,  the  peace  which  a  man 
has  in  the  truth  which  he  holds.  There,  more  than 
anywhere  else,  we  can  discern  the  difference  between 
the  peace  which  lies  within  the  understanding  and 
the  higher  peace  which  passeth  understanding. 
Here  is  the  universe  all  full  of  questions,  the  prob- 
lems about  truth  starting  on  every  side.  Suppose 
that  a  man  thought  that  he  had  found  the  answers 
to  them,  that  in  some  creed  or  system  which  he  had 
embraced  all  difficulties  were  dissolved.  He  could 
tell  why  evil  is  permitted,  and  how  men  shall  be 
judged,  and  what  this  continual  difference  of  the 
fortunes  of  mankind  means.  He  and  his  system 
had  fathomed  all  the  depths,  unravelled  all  the 
contradictions. 

There  must  be  a  strong  satisfaction  in  a  feeling 
such  as  that.  No  wonder  that  men  seek  it.  No 
wonder  that  with  one  oracle  or  another  men  are 
always  trying  to  think  that  they  have  got  completely 


228   PEACE   WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING 

rid  of  doubt,  and  answered  all  the  questions,  and 
banished  mystery  out  of  the  world.  That  is  the 
peace  of  the  understanding,  the  pure  self-satisfaction 
of  the  intellect  which  seems  to  be  quite  suflficient 
for  its  task.  Perhaps  some  time  some  of  us  have 
had  a  dream  like  that.  Perhaps  we  lived  in  such  a 
dream  some  time,  and  then  what  happened  ?  What 
became  of  it  ?  Simply  some  question  came  that 
defied  us  to  answer  it.  Some  one  of  the  old  ques- 
tions that  we  thought  were  answered  woke  at  some 
provocation  of  our  own  experience  and  pressed 
home  on  us  with  its  sharp  spear  pointed  with  fire. 
Our  peace  was  shattered.  The  settled  was  not 
settled.  The  trim,  snug  answers  burst  and  broke 
with  the  swelling  problems.  Ah,  how  continual 
such  terrible  surprises  are!  Who  does  not  know 
such  experiences? 

Just  when  we  are  safest,  there  's  a  sunset-touch, 
A  fancy  from  a  flower  bell,  some  one's  death, 
A  chorus-ending  from  Euripides, 
And  that 's  enough  for  fifty  hopes  and  fears. 
As  old  and  new  at  once  as  Nature's  self, 
To  rap  and  knock  and  enter  in  our  soul. 
Take  hands  and  dance  there,  a  fantastic  ring. 
Round  the  old  Idol,  on  his  base  again, — 
The  grand  Perhaps  ! 

Thus  was  the  peace  made  and  built  up  within  an 
understanding  broken  and  lost  by  the  reasserted 
mystery  of  life — the  little  creed  overcome  by  the 
great  world.  And  what  then  ?  Unless  out  of  that 
■mystery  itself  could  come  a  peace,  there  was  no 
hope.     Unless  it  all — vague,   infinite  as  it   was — 


PEACE    WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING   229 

could  be  possessed  and  filled  with  a  Being  whom 
we  knew,  and  who  from  His  home  far  beyond  our 
understanding  called  to  us  and  took  us  to  Himself, 
we  were  all  lost.  God  grant  that  that  has  come, 
that  out  beyond  the  creeds  and  systems  we  believe 
in  we  have  come  to  believe  in  God,  taking  our 
satisfaction  and  content  that  all  is  well,  not  from 
our  mind's  discernment  of  the  goodness  of  each  de- 
tail, but  from  our  soul's  assurance  of  His  love  and 
power.  If  that  has  come,  then  a  new  peace  has 
opened  on  us,  a  peace  in  Him,  a  peace  of  soul  and 
not  of  mind,  a  peace  of  love  and  not  of  reason,  a 
peace  not  hedged  and  bounded  by  our  own  intelli- 
gence, a  peace  that  passeth  understanding,  and  is 
sure  of  all  things  because  it  is  sure  of  Him. 

How  can  I  possess  my  soul  in  peace  when  so 
much  everywhere  is  in  disturbance  ?  I  do  not, 
cannot,  dare  not,  say  that  I  can  see  the  right  in 
every  wrong,  the  light  in  every  darkness,  but  when 
I  know  that  God  is,  and  that  He  sees  what  I  cannot 
see,  only  then  comes  the  higher  peace, — 

Well  roars  the  storm  to  those  who  hear 
A  deeper  voice  across  the  storm. 

Is  it  not  clear,  then  ?  Within  the  world  which 
our  understandings  can  embrace  there  is  a  peace 
which  we  can  estimate.  Its  assurance  lies  in  a  com- 
parison of  clearly  seen  dangers  with  clearly  seen 
supplies.  I  see  such  and  such  expenses,  and  lo, 
here  is  the  money  to  meet  them  with.  I  know  of 
this  or  that  strain  coming,  but,  behold  I  I  am  well 


230   PEACE   WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING 

and  strong  and  prosperous,  and  I  can  bear  it.  Here 
are  hard  questions,  but  here  in  the  other  hand  are 
their  sufficient  answers. 

If  life  stopped  there,  all  would  be  well.  But  life 
will  not  stop  there.  Never  can  we  say:  "  Now  I 
have  provided  for  the  last  danger  and  answered  the 
last  question — '  Soul,  thou  hast  much  goods  laid  up 
for  many  years.'  "  Before  the  words  are  out  of  our 
lips  another  danger,  a  new  question,  comes  down 
upon  us  out  of  the  infiniteness  of  life  behind  us. 
There  is  where  the  peace  of  self-sufficiency  breaks 
down.  We  men  here  on  the  shore  of  human  life, 
with  just  a  little  of  its  very  border  appropriated, 
seem  to  be  like  Crusoe  on  the  beach  of  his  unknown 
island.  We  guard  against  a  few  immediate  dangers, 
we  build  our  hut  and  our  stockade,  we  plant  our 
plot  of  corn,  we  light  our  fire,  and  we  load  our 
gun,  and  then  we  sit  down  and  try  to  call  that  peace 
and  safety.  And  as  we  sit  there  we  feel  how  little 
way  our  peace  extends.  How  little  of  the  island 
we  have  comprehended!  Our  peace  stops  at  the 
line  of  trees  which  backs  our  little  beach  with  its 
dark  shadow.  Beyond  that  all  is  mystery  and 
danger.  What  foe  may  come  out  from  it  upon  us 
at  any  moment  we  cannot  tell. 

I  appeal  to  your  own  knowledge  of  your  own 
lives  to  testify  to  what  I  say.  Is  there  not,  with 
the  most  safely  guarded  of  us,  a  haunting  sense  of 
something  that  money  or  health  or  prosperity  or 
study  cannot  do  ?  We  know  they  all  exhaust 
themselves.  We  know  there  is  a  region  of  human 
need  which  they  are  powerless  to  enter.     What  is 


PEACE   WHICH    PASSETH   UNDERSTANDING    23 1 

there  that  can  help  us  there  ?  what  peace  beyond 
our  understanding  and  our  planning  ?  More  thar 
we  know,  that  question  lies  heavily  upon  many  of 
our  souls  which  seem  easy  and  careless. 

And  to  that  question  the  soul  gives  its  answer  m 
one  great  word-" God."     Beyond  our  understand- 
ing and  our  planning,  inhabiting  and    filling  with 
Himself  that   unexplored  .  region,  the   Source  and 
Governor  of  all  that  issues  from  it,  there  is  God, 
"  the  high  and  lofty  One  that  inhabitcth  eternity. 
It  is  by  apprehending  Him  that  the  infinity  in  which 
He  dwells  becomes  peaceful  and  secure  for  us.     And 
He  is  apprehended  not  by  the  understanding,  but 
by  the  heart.     The  understanding  tells  us  that  He 
is   but  it  is  the  heart  that  goes  forth  after  H.m  and 
finds  Him,  and  fastens  itself  upon  Him,  and  in  Him 
makes  the  infinity  in  which  He  dwells  its  own. 

Once  more  recur  a  moment  to  the  figure  which 
we  used.     Still  we   may  think  of  the  man  living 
upon   the   strip  of  beach  which  is  all  that  he  has 
apprehended,  where  he  has  built  his  house  and  set 
up  his  defences;  only  now  the  great  wilderness  be- 
hind him,  though  unexplored  by  him.  is  known  to 
and  governed  by  one  whom  he  knows,  in  whom  he 
trusts  and  who  in  many  ways  has  shown  his  good- 
ness to  him.     So,  when  a  man  loves  God,  back  from 
the  little  fragment  of  life  which  he  knows,  stretches 
the  great  immensity  of  life  which  he  cannot  know 
which   passes   his   understanding,   but  which   God 
understands,  and  so  which,  while  it  never  loses  its 
mystery,  loses  all  its  fear  for  the  servant   of  God 
who  is  in  communion  with  his  Lord  through  love. 


232   PEACE   WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING 

Is  not  this  what  St.  Paul  means  ?  "  The  peace  of 
God  which  passeth  all  understanding,"  he  says.  It 
is  first  a  peace  which  God  possesses.  No  fear,  no 
trouble  in  the  universe  can  touch  His  perfect  mind. 
He  knows,  He  governs  all.  With  Him  the  peace 
is  self-contained.     It  is  absolute  self-sufificiency. 

What  thought  can  be  more  rich  or  solemn  than 
this  of  God  so  utterly  filling  the  universe  with  Him- 
self that  out  of  no  unexplored  corner  of  it  can  start 
any  anxiety  to  surprise  Him  ?  His  pure  peace  in 
Himself — how  it  throws  out  in  contrast  the  fright- 
ened, anxious,  nervous  lives  we  live!  This  is  the 
"  peace  of  God,"  the  peace  which  God  has  that 
passes  our  understanding;  but,  then,  that  peace  is 
communicable  to  us — not  through  the  understand- 
ing, for  that  does  not  reach  far  enough  to  take  it, 
but  through  love.  It  is  something  which  He  may 
give  to  us,  something  on  which  we  may  enter  as  we 
enter  into  Him ;  and  then  for  us,  too,  there  is  safety 
in  those  realms  of  life  where,  save  as  we  go  in  Him 
by  love,  we  cannot  go  at  all. 

Ah,  you  watch  some  poor,  ignorant,  faithful  soul 
taking  up  a  duty  that  you  see  is  endless,  giving  him- 
self to  a  sacrifice  that  reaches  to  the  very  sundering 
of  soul  and  body!  He  does  it  with  a  calm,  bright 
face,  and  you  think  that  he  is  ignorant,  he  does  not 
know  what  he  is  doing.  "  My  poor  friend,"  you 
say  to  him,  "  have  you  weighed  the  cost  ?  Do  you 
know  where  that  task  will  carry  you?  Do  you  know 
that  you  can  meet  the  labor  and  the  suffering  that 
it  will  bring  ?  "  "No,"  he  replies,  "I  know  nothing. 
I  know  only  God,  and  He  is  in  the  task  which  He 


PEACE   WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING   233 

has  given;  and  let  it  carry  me  where  it  will,  it  can- 
not carry  me  beyond  Him."  That  is  the  peace  of 
God  which  passeth  understanding.  A  little  child 
is  putting  a  fearless  foot  down  into  the  river  beyond 
which  lies  eternity.  "  Poor  child,"  you  say,  "  do 
you  know  the  eternity  which  you  are  going  to  ? 
Do  you  know  what  you  will  do,  what  you  will  be, 
in  that  mysterious  land  ?  Do  you  understand  im- 
mortality ? "  "No,"  he  replies,  "I  understand 
nothing.  But  I  love  God.  I  am  going  to  Him. 
And  eternity  is  not  so  vast  that,  in  all  of  it,  I  can 
go  beyond  Him."  That  is  "the  peace  of  God 
which  passeth  all  understanding." 

And  this  makes  very  plain  to  us  the  work  of 
Christ.  What  does  He  do  for  us  ?  What  was  He 
doing  in  the  struggle  of  His  life  ?  What  was  He 
doing  on  His  cross  ?  What  is  He  doing  forever  at 
His  Father's  throne  ?  He  is  ghniig  us  the  peace  of 
God.  And  how  ?  By  making  God  real  to  us,  and 
bringing  u«  to  God.  All  is  for  that.  He  reconciles 
us  to  God.  He  takes  a  poor  rebellious,  restless  life ; 
He  touches  it  with  His  power;  He  wakens  its  ca- 
pacity for  gratitude;  He  makes  it  penitent  and  then 
forgives  it;  He  breaks  away  the  obstacles  that  lie 
between  it  and  its  Father:  He  casts  His  own  love 
into  the  deep  gulf  and  fills  it.  And  then  over  that 
filled  gulf  the  love  of  the  changed  soul  can  go  unhin- 
dered to  God  and  lay  hold  upon  Him.  And  there, 
in  Him,  it  finds  the  peace  it  never  knew  before — a 
peace  that  covers  every  region  which  God's  life 
covers,  a  peace  which  goes  where  the  understanding 
cannot  go,  and  faces  the  spectres  of  the  spirit  and 


234   PEACE   WHICH    PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING 

the  conscience,  and  subdues  them  in  the  strength 
of  God, 

"  There  is  no  peace,  saith  my  God,  to  the 
wicked."  How  could  there  be  ?  The  essence  of 
wickedness  is  that  it  is  separation  from  God.  And 
so  it  cannot  have  the  peace  of  God.  All  fear  be- 
longs to  it.  But  Christ  takes  the  soul  out  of  its 
wickedness  and  brings  it  to  God,  and  there  its  peace 
begins.  Once  more  to  turn  back  to  our  figure: 
Christ  is  the  Son  and  Other  Self  of  Him  to  whom 
belongs  the  infinite  land  upon  whose  beach  we  live. 
And  He  comes  down  to  where  we  are  encamped, 
and,  at  all  sacrifice  of  Himself,  tells  us  of  the  love 
of  Him  who  owns  it  all  and  wins  our  love  for  Him. 
This  is  the  peace  He  brings.  His  peace  which  he 
"  leaves  "  among  us. 

I  am  afraid — nay,  I  am  sure — that  much  which  I 
have  said  to  you  to-day  seems  to  a  good  many  of 
you  very  mystical.  What  do  we  mean  by  mystical  ? 
Beyond  our  understanding!  But  it  is  »ot  to  the 
weakest  of  us,  it  is  often  to  the  very  strongest  of  us 
that,  many  and  many  a  time  in  life,  the  narrowness 
of  the  understanding  grows  oppressive  and  we  long 
to  look  beyond  it.  Often,  as  we  sail  so  steadily  on, 
from  what  and  into  what  we  know  so  little,  we  long 
to  forget  the  clank  of  the  machinery  by  which  we 
sail,  and  to  stand  on  the  rolling  deck  and  look  out 
into  the  mystery  of  the  ocean  on  which  we  sail. 
That  mystery  of  life  is  God.  Shall  I  guard  and 
watch  my  engines  and  never  question  the  ocean  and 
the  sky  ?  Shall  I  watch  and  guard  my  business, 
and  never,  by  prayer,  by  obedience,  by  communion, 


PEACE   WHICH   PASSETH    UNDERSTANDING   235 

draw  near  to  and  ask  the  deepest  things  of  Him  ? 
The  soul  that  loves  God  has  entered  into  that 
mystery  of  His  Being.  To  it  come  intimations  of 
His  Will  which  it  cannot  analyze  or  justify,  but 
which  it  follows  as  the  laws,  the  secrets,  of  its  life. 
To  it  comes  knowledge  which  men  may  call  foolish- 
ness, but  which  it  knows  is  deeper  truth.  On  it 
rests  a  peace  which  passes  understanding,  but  is  full 
to  the  outmost  borders  with  living  love. 

Oh,  do  not  be  afraid  to  let  your  love  carry  you 
beyond  your  understanding.  Our  danger  is  not 
mysticism.  Let  the  higher  life  sound  to  you  as 
mystical  and  cloudy  as  it  will,  nevertheless,  enter 
into  the  cloud  without  a  fear.  Follow  Christ,  by 
earnest  faith,  by  obedience,  by  loving  imitation, 
trying  everywhere  to  keep  near  to  Him  by  being 
like  Him,  and  He  will  lead  you  certainly  to  God 
and  to  "the  peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  under- 
standing." 


XIV. 
THE    RELATIVE    AND    THE   ABSOLUTE. 

"  And  there  was  also  a  strife  among  them,  which  of  them  should 
be  accounted  the  greatest." — Luke  xxii.  24. 

The  strife  was  among  the  disciples  of  Jesus,  and 
it  took  place  at  the  very  table  where  He  sat  with 
them  on  the  night  before  His  crucifixion.  We  say 
"  How  strange  it  was!"  and  it  was  very  strange,  in- 
deed. That  the  personal  presence  of  their  Master 
should  not  have  taken  those  men  up  above  all  ques- 
tion of  precedence  or  superiority,  and  made  each  re- 
joice to  hope  and  believe  that  the  other  was  a  greater 
man  and  a  better  disciple  than  himself, — this  cer- 
tainly was  strange.  But,  after  all,  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  gained  out  of  the  story,  in  the  reminder 
which  it  gives  us  that  these  men  were  still  men,  that 
even  with  Christ  visibly  among  them,  the  occupa- 
tion of  their  natures  by  His  power  had  to  be  gradual 
and  slow,  and  so  that  we  must  not  be  too  ready  to 
despair  either  of  ourselves  or  of  each  other.  It 
ought  to  make  us  see  how  the  new  power  of  Christ 
does  not  destroy,  but  purifies  and  uses  the  faculties 
and  dispositions  which  it  finds  in  man.  This  last 
will  be  the  special  lesson  from  the  story  on  which  I 
shall  dwell  to-day. 

236 


THE    RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE  237 

Think,  then,  of  that  old  picture.  Artists  have 
tried  to  put  it  upon  canvas,  and  not  one  of  them 
has  satisfied  that  imagination  of  it  which  has  been 
bright  in  Christian  souls  that  saw  in  it  the  essence 
of  their  faith.  Jesus,  the  Master,  sits  at  the  table, 
and  all  around  Him  are  His  twelve  disciples.  He  is 
the  Life,  and  so  His  presence  sheds  vitality  on 
every  side.  It  is  like  the  sun  shining  on  a  fertile 
field;  all  kinds  of  dispositions  and  emotions  spring 
up  freely.  Love,  regret,  indignation,  resolution, 
expectation — these  and  a  host  of  others  are  all  there. 
And  among  all  the  rest,  out  of  these  fruitful  hearts 
quickened  by  the  warm  sunshine  of  Christ's  nature 
present  with  them,  springs  up  emulation.  The 
disciples  begin  to  look  suspiciously  on  one  another. 
The  clear  air  becomes  thick  with  comparisons.  They 
are  not  content  to  be  asking  simply  how  great  and 
good  each  of  them  can  be,  but  there  grows  up  in 
each  soul  a  desire  to  be  greater  and  better  than  the 
others.  There  is  a  strife  among  them  which  of 
them  shall  be  accounted  the  greatest. 

We  want,  first  of  all,  to  recognize  how  perfectly 
natural  this  is.  There  are  two  ways  in  which  a  man 
may  estimate  his  progress  and  the  position  which 
he  holds  at  any  moment.  There  is  the  absolute 
method,  and  there  is  the  comparative  method. 
Take  your  profession.  You  are  engaged  in  some 
one  of  the  great  recognized  departments  of  human 
action.  You  have  been  engaged  in  it  for  a  long  time. 
You  have  been  working  as  a  mechanic,  a  lawyer,  a 
merchant,  or  a  physician  for  many  years.  You  ask 
yourself  some  morning,  "How  do  I  stand  to-day?" 


238  THE    RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE 

I  am  sure  there  is  no  better  test  of  what  sort  of 
man  you  are  than  the  way  in  which  you  go  about  to 
get  your  answer.  More  significant  than  the  answer 
whicn  you  get  is  the  way  in  which  you  go  about 
to  get  it.  On  the  one  hand,  you  may  look  round 
and  see  how  other  men  are  doing.  You  may  take 
men  whose  Hfe  in  your  profession  is  recognized  as  a 
success,  and  ask  yourself  whether  you  are  as  suc- 
cessful as  they.  "Am  I  as  honest,  as  prosperous, 
as  well  esteemed  as  this  man  or  as  that  man  who, 
upon  the  whole,  is  accepted  as  a  fair  specimen  of 
what  a  man  in  this  profession  ought  to  be?  "  You 
try  to  find  your  true  place  in  a  long  scale  marked 
and  graduated  by  the  greater  or  less  attainment  of 
your  brethren.  That  is  the  comparative  method  of 
self-estimate. 

On  the  other  hand,  instead  of  looking  about  upon 
your  brethren  you  may  sit  down  and  try  to  realize 
absolutely  what  your  profession  and  the  man  work- 
ing in  it  ought  to  be.  You  try  to  summon  back 
that  vision  of  it  which  you  saw  burning  before  your 
imagination  when  you  first  set  out  upon  it.  You 
summon  its  essential  principles  and  pure  ideas. 
You  ask  yourself  how  far  you  have  satisfied  the 
final  purposes  for  which  your  occupation  has  its 
being  in  the  world.  That  is  the  absolute  method 
of  self-estimate. 

The  difference  is  clear.  And  if  we  let  ourselves 
think,  not  of  two  men  calmly  judging  of  their  lives 
in  these  two  ways,  but  of  two  men  living  their  lives 
under  the  impulses  which  these  two  ways  of  judg- 
ment will  create, — then  the  difference  is  more  strik- 


THE    RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE  239 

ing  still.  One  man  is  anxious  to  outstrip  as  many 
of  his  brethren  as  possible;  the  other  is  anxious  to 
get  as  near  as  possible  to  the  true  standard  of  his 
occupation.  One  is  all  keenly  alive  with  rivalry ; 
the  other  is  earnestly  set  upon  attainment. 

When  we  state  it  thus,  I  think  we  see  at  once 
how  the  absolute  method  and  impulse  are  finer  and 
higher  than  the  comparative,  and  at  the  same  time 
we  realize  how  largely  the  comparative  method  and 
impulse  rule  the  lives  of  men.  Look  at  the  boy  at 
school ;  is  it  always  pure  love  of  learning  that  makes 
him  struggle  so  to  learn  his  lesson?  Surely  not! 
It  is  the  passion  to  outstrip  the  other  boys  and  win 
the  head  of  the  class  or  the  medal  that  shall  show 
he  has  surpassed  them.  Look  at  the  busy  citizen, 
eager  in  all  public  affairs,  restless,  observant,  im- 
patient, putting  a  useful  hand  to  necessary  tasks  of 
every  kind.  Is  it  a  simple  public  spirit  that  inspires 
him?  Surely  not!  A  desire  to  be  first  among  the 
citizens,  to  be  more  valued  by  his  fellow-citizens 
than  any  other — that  certainly  is  a  large  part  of 
what  we  see  kindling  in  his  eye  and  moving  in  his 
tireless  hands  and  feet.  It  is  a  race,  not  merely  to 
do  the  distance  and  to  do  it  in  a  certain  time,  but 
to  do  it  in  shorter  time  than  other  men, — that  is 
what  makes  it  fascination.  To  see  our  fellow-runner, 
who  is  far  in  front  of  us  at  first,  grow  nearer  as  we 
gain  upon  him,  and  by  and  by  to  feel  ourselves  close 
at  his  side;  and  then  to  hear  his  footfalls  die  away 
behind  us  as  we  shoot  far  ahead, — that  is  a  large 
part  of  the  fascination  of  the  running.  To  take  out 
competition,  to  bid  each  man  do  his  work  from  the 


240  THE   RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE 

pure  impulse  of  the  work  itself,  to  bid  each  man  run 
round  the  race-course  of  his  life  alone,  do  we  not 
know  what  listless  runners  that  would  make? 

When  we  talk  thus  of  rivalry  or  emulation,  we 
see  immediately  its  dangers  and  how  great  they  are. 
We  see  how  rivalry  must  oftentimes  be  tempted  to 
detract  from  the  good  name  of  others,  and  to  hold 
those  back  whom  it  is  hard  to  keep  up  with  or  sur- 
pass. That  is  one  danger.  And  there  also  is  the 
danger  of  too  easy  self-content,  the  danger  which 
comes  to  all  of  us  when  we  have  found  no  com- 
petitors in  any  particular  race  whom  we  could  not 
outstrip,  and  yet  are  far  from  having  put  forth  all 
the  power  that  is  in  us,  or  from  reaching  the  goal 
which  is  the  only  really  worthy  satisfaction. 

Among  the  men  whose  struggles  are  comparative, 
not  absolute,  the  ugly,  envious  faces  and  the  com- 
placent, satisfied  faces  are  too  common.  If  they  are 
strugglers  hard-pushed  by  their  competitors,  they 
grow  jealous;  if  they  have  won  their  victory  and 
are  no  longer  likely  to  be  outrun,  they  grow  self- 
satisfied.  To  be  eager  and  earnest,  and  yet  not  to 
want  to  hinder  any  other  man  from  doing  his  best; 
to  be  calm  and  serene,  and  yet  to  be  full  of  energy 
and  hope  of  higher  things,  —  this  comes  to  him 
whose  life  aims  at  the  absolute,  who  strives,  not  to 
be  stronger  than  his  brethren,  but  to  be  ever  stronger 
than  himself,  ever  nearer  to  the  fullest  strength 
which  it  is  in  him  to  obtain. 

Rivalry  and  emulation,  then,  if  they  have  their 
places  at  all  in  a  well-ordered  human  life,  as  im- 
pulses of  action,  must  be  satisfied  to  be  wholly  sub- 


THE    RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE  24I 

ordinate  and  accidental.  Two  regiments  start  side 
by  side  to  storm  the  works  of  the  enemy.  On  their 
fierce  rush  across  the  plain  each  may  well  be  stimu- 
lated by  the  desire  to  beat  the  other  and  come  first 
to  where  the  hand-to-hand  battle  must  be  fought; 
but  the  real  inspiration  must  be  in  the  frowning 
guns  of  the  foe  and  the  determination  that  they 
must  be  taken. 

One  would  like  to  speak  urgently  and  earnestly 
to  the  young  people  here,  and  remind  them  of  how 
much  of  the  solidity  and  independent  strength  of 
life  depends  upon  their  learning  very  early  to  de- 
pend upon  absolute  and  personal  relations  to  the 
objects  which  they  desire.  Insist  on  feeling  the  in- 
trinsic power  of  the  things  you  seek.  So,  and  so 
only,  can  you  be  sure  that  even  if  every  other 
seeker  should  become  discouraged  and  drop  away, 
your  search  would  still  go  on.  You  start  upon  a 
course  of  reading  or  of  study  with  congenial  com- 
panions. A  generous  rivalry  begins  at  once.  Who 
will  be  quickest  and  most  faithful?  Who  will  pierce 
most  deeply  and  directly  to  the  author's  meaning? 
That  is  very  good,  of  course.  But  if  that  be  all,  or 
be  the  principal  thing,  the  whole  enterprise  is  weak. 
The  book  itself,  the  author's  valuable  thought,  the 
truth  he  has  to  tell, — in  these  must  be  the  real  at- 
traction. If  you  are  really  set  on  these,  then  you 
may  gladly  accept  the  stimulus  and  pleasant  excite- 
ment which  comes  from  matching  mind  with  mind 
among  your  fellow-students;  just  as  a  ship  bound 
for  the  North  Pole  may  easily  indulge,  some  sunny 

day,  in  a  friendly  race  with  another  ship,  bound  for 
16 


242         THE   RELATIVE  AND   THE  ABSOLUTE 

the  same  mysterious  goal,  which  it  has  met  on  some 
great,  free  expanse  among  the  icy  seas;  but  the  true 
purpose  of  the  voyage,  the  thing  which  keeps  the 
ship  stern  and  determined,  and  makes  it  safe  not  to 
be  misled  by  the  fascinations  of  the  race,  is  the  un- 
seen purpose  of  its  voyage,  the  mysterious  pole 
whose  deeper  fascination  has  drawn  it  out  of  its 
home-harbor  and  keeps  it  steadfast  on  its  way  until 
it  finds  its  prize,  or  turns  back  before  a  hopeless 
obstacle,  or  goes  down  in  the  midst  of  storms  it 
cannot  weather. 

It  is  not  only  the  persistence  of  life,  it  is  also  the 
purity  of  life,  which  is  secured  by  service  of  the  ab- 
solute. The  eagerness  which  comes  by  rivalry  not 
merely  is  unreliable  and  ready  to  give  way,  but 
while  it  lasts  it  is  of  poorer  quality  than  the  eager- 
ness which  comes  from  a  real  desire  for  the  essential 
natures  of  the  things  we  see.  The  essential  nature 
of  things  has  its  true  and  constant  relations  to  the 
soul  of  man.  The  two  are  made  to  answer  healthily 
to  one  another.  Learning  shines  upon  its  hill-top, 
and  the  desire  to  know  in  the  soul  of  man  leaps  up 
to  greet  it.  Strength  calls  from  the  distance  with 
its  rugged  voice,  and  the  desire  to  be  strong  which 
is  in  man  hears  and  answers  to  the  call.  The  strug- 
gle and  search  which  follow  until  the  purpose  is 
attained  are  legitimate  and  pure.  There  is  no  base 
admixture  of  low  motive.  But  rivalry,  the  desire 
to  outstrip  our  brethren,  is  always  trembling  on  the 
brink  of  jealousy  and  spite.  It  is  so  easy  to  pull 
down  the  reputation  which  is  a  little  too  high  for  us 
to  match ;  it  is  so  hard  to  be  glad  of  the  good  thing 


THE   RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE         243 

which  another  man  does,  when  it  makes  the  less 
good  thing  which  we  are  doing  seem  poor  and  in- 
significant. And  even  when  the  temptation  to  spite 
and  jealousy  is  resisted,  and  the  rivalry  is  absolutely 
generous  and  fair,  and  the  victory  is  honorably  ours, 
the  whole  side  issue  of  comparison  is  an  alloy  and 
distraction  to  that  pure  desire  for  a  noble  thing 
which,  quite  apart  from  the  attainment  of  the  thing, 
is  one  of  the  noblest  educations  of  a  human  life. 

There  is  yet  another  danger  that  comes  from 
giving  rivalry  too  large  a  place  among  our  impulses. 
It  lies  in  the  temptation  to  limit  our  lives  to  those 
companionships  in  which  we  can  easily  be  first,  and 
so  losing  the  broader  fields  of  action  in  which  we 
should  get  the  greatest  exercise  and  growth,  even 
though  we  were  constantly  outstripped.  "  Better 
be  first  man  in  this  small  village  than  second  man 
in  Rome,"  we  cry;  and  so  we  shut  ourselves  up  in 
the  village  where  we  can  be  first,  and  all  the  great 
inspirations  and  delights  and  cultures  of  Rome  are 
lost.  How  many  men  are  doing  this!  What  multi- 
tudes of  souls  are  spending  their  lives  in  playing 
children's  games,  because  they  know  the  petty  cards 
and  can  easily  beat  in  them,  and  letting  the  brave 
man's  work  which  they  ought  to  be  doing,  but  in 
which  they  fear  to  be  outstripped  by  other  men,  lie 
undone.  How  one  wants  to  cry  to  them:  "For 
shame!  Go  and  meet  men  worthy  of  your  man- 
hood. Go  and  match  yourself  with  the  best  men 
you  can  find.  Go  and  be  beaten.  It  is  better  to 
be  beaten  in  wrestling  with  the  strongest  than  to 
win  a  thousand  battles  over  adversaries  just  a  little 


244         THE   RELATIVE  AND  THE  ABSOLUTE 

weaker  than  yourself.  By  such  defeats  you  grow 
strong.  By  such  victories  you  grow  ever  feebler 
as  you  become  more  proud  !  " 

All  that  is  good  to  say.  It  is  good  to  bid  men 
run  races  with  feet  swifter  than  their  own.  But 
ts  it  not  better  still  to  beg  them  to  make  as  little 
as  possible  of  the  race-running  motive  altogether? 
Do  not  think  about  outstripping  each  other;  think 
of  getting  to  the  goal !  Let  your  whole  soul  be  set 
on  God,  on  getting  to  Him.  Entering  into  Him, 
filling  your  life  with  His,  then  look  round  with  joy 
at  every  progress  which  other  souls  are  making 
towards  that  only  satisfaction  of  a  human  life.  Cul- 
tivate everywhere  the  habit  of  dealing  directly  with 
the  absolute,  and  the  merely  relative  and  compara- 
tive ways  of  estimating  life  will  come  to  be  pro- 
foundly uninteresting  to  you.  You  will  not  care  for 
much  which  now  seems  to  you  of  vast  importance. 
"He  is  the  best  athlete,  the  best  lawyer,  the  best 
merchant,  the  best  Christian  in  the  town," — that 
will  sound  very  tame  and  uninteresting  to  you. 
You  will  not  care  whether  it  is  true  or  not  when  you 
have  really  seen  the  perfection  of  those  attainments 
shine  before  you,  and  your  soul  is  set  on  being  the 
best  athlete,  the  best  lawyer,  the  best  merchant,  the 
best  Christian  that  it  is  possible  for  you  to  be.  Only 
in  pursuit  of  the  absolute  comes  freedom  from  the 
slavery  of  the  relative,  with  its  rivalries  and  com- 
parisons, with  its  close  atmospheres  and  small  satis- 
factions, and  restlessness  and  jealousy  and  spite! 

I  want  to  turn  now  to  Jesus,  and  see  how  in  the 
story  which  we  have  before  us  He  dealt  with  this 


THE    RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE  245 

disposition  of  rivalry  of  which  I  have  been  speaking 
at  such  length,  and  which  he  found  breaking  out  in 
His  disciples.  I  cannot  doubt  that  in  general  His 
way  of  dealing  with  it  was  that  which  I  have  been 
trying  to  describe.  The  whole  great  spirit  of  His 
Gospel  was  forever  trying  to  draw  men  away  from 
the  ."Livery  of  the  relative  into  the  freedom  of  the 
absolute.  He  never  encourages  men  to  compare 
themselves  with  one  another.  He  is  always  bidding 
them  be  perfect  like  their  Father.  He  hardly  ever 
says,  "Outstrip  one  another."  He  almost  always 
says,  "  Come  to  me." 

And  yet  it  would  not  be  hard  to  quote  passages 
in  which  Jesus  recognized  the  power  of  comparison, 
and  stimulated  His  disciples  by  bidding  them  see 
how  their  lives  stood  beside  the  lives  of  others  of 
God's  servants.  He  told  them  of  John  the  Baptist 
that  no  man  born  of  woman  had  surpassed  him  in 
true  greatness.  He  warned  the  cities  of  the  Lake 
of  Gennesaret  that  the  men  of  Nineveh  had  been 
more  ready  to  hear  the  word  of  God  than  they. 

Jesus,  then,  does  not  ignore  the  power  of  com- 
parison. He  does  not  ignore  any  of  the  powers 
which  have  their  essence  in  the  very  constitution  of 
humanity.  That  is  His  glory.  He  takes  two  powers 
and  says  of  one:  "This  is  the  noblest.  Do  your 
w^ork  with  this  by  all  means,  if  you  can."  But  He 
does  not  forbid  the  using  of  the  lower  power  if  only 
it  be  pure,  and  be  kept  in  its  true  degree,  and  be 
used  rightly.  "This  ought  ye  to  have  done,  and 
not  to  leave  the  other  undone." 

But  there  is  another  thing  which  He  does  often, 


246  THE    RELATIVE   AND    THE   ABSOLUTE 

anu  which  it  seems  to  me  that  He  does  here.  He 
takes  the  lower  power  and  makes  it  higher  than  it 
is  often  made,  and  rescues  it  from  many  of  its 
dangers,  by  suggesting  a  higher  method  of  its  use. 

For  powers  are  not  invariable  in  their  character. 
They  vary  with  their  uses.  They  grow  finer  when 
they  are  used  on  finer  things.  The  power  of  thought 
grows  subtle  as  it  deals  with  subtle  problems.  The 
power  of  imagination  becomes  more  radiant  when  it 
is  picturing  the  possibilities  of  the  celestial  life 
than  when  it  paints  some  base  indulgence  of  the 
earthly  nature. 

This  is  the  principle  which  Christ  applies  to  the 
power  of  rivalry.  He  sees  His  disciples  in  danger 
of  using  it  for  low  purposes,  and  so  of  making  it  a 
low  thing.  They  wanted  to  compete  for  tawdry 
reputation  and  position, — "which  of  them  should 
be  accounted  the  greatest?"  Such  a  use  of  it 
would  make  the  power  itself  tawdry.  Jesus  says: 
"No!  If  you  must  use  the  power  use  it  for  a  fine, 
unselfish  thing,  and  so  make  it  fine  and  unselfish." 
And  then  he  tells  them  what  that  use  shall  be. 
"He  that  is  greatest  among  you,  let  him  be  as  the 
younger;  and  he  that  is  chief  as  he  that  doth  serve." 

How  deep  and  wise  and  fine  that  is!  Jesus  says: 
"Must  you  then  compete  with  one  another?  Must 
one  be  greater  and  the  other  less?  Must  you  then 
use  this  power  of  competition?  It  might  be  better 
if  you  did  not  use  it  at  all;  but,  if  you  must  use  it, 
make  it  as  noble  as  you  can  by  using  it  on  noble 
things.  Use  it  for  human  good.  See  not  who 
shall  be  splendidest,  but  who  shall  be  most  useful. 


THE  RELATIVE  AND  THE  ABSOLUTE    24;^ 

Let  your  rivalry  be  a  rivalry  in  self-sacrifice  and  in 
laborious  doing  of  good.  Compete  with  one  an- 
other in  humility.  See  which  can  be  the  truest 
servant." 

As  if  one  took  a  stream  which  had  been  running 
waste  in  low  and  muddy  places,  and  with  a  strong 
hand  collected  it  and  shut  it  up  into  its  channel  and 
turned  it  to  the  fields  which  needed  and  could  wel- 
come its  fertility,  so  was  it  when  Christ  took  this 
wasted,  dissipated  power  of  rivalry  and  said  to  it: 
"  Come  here.  Here  is  your  true  work.  Do  this 
noble  work  nobly,  and  it  shall  ennoble  you!"  We 
can  almost  hear  the  stream  laugh  in  its  delight  as 
it  recognizes  its  true  task.  We  can  almost  see  the 
power  lift  itself  to  mightier  proportions  as  it  beholds 
the  worthy  work  which  it  is  called  to  do. 

Imagine  the  difference  to  the  disciples  when  they 
once  really  grasped  the  new  teaching  of  their  Master. 
They  might  very  likely  have  looked  for  a  rebuke. 
They  might  have  expected  that  their  Master  would 
have  forbidden  them  to  use  this  power  of  rivalry  at 
all;  but  this  is  different.  He  says:  "Use  it, — but 
use  it  for  higher  and  holier  purposes.  Use  it  not 
to  surpass  one  another  in  honor  and  esteem,  but 
use  it  to  increase  the  amount  of  usefulness  and 
brother-help."  How  the  sword  which  they  were 
just  grasping,  of  which  they  were  ashamed,  which 
they  expected  to  see  snatched  out  of  their  hands, 
must  have  flashed  into  a  new  and  surprising  splendor 
when  they  saw  in  the  light  of  Christ's  words  to  what 
noble  uses  it  might  be  put! 

If  they  did  what  Christ  bade  them  do,  as  in  some 


248  THE    RELATIVE   AND    THE   ABSOLUTE 

good  degree  they  did,  they  must  have  been  the  sub- 
jects of  a  continually  increasing  surprise.  The  old 
power,  transfigured  by  its  new  use,  must  have 
amazed  them  with  its  possibilities.  Behold!  there 
could  be  rivalry  without  hate  or  grudge.  Behold! 
they  could  struggle  to  beat  and  yet  rejoice  to  be 
beaten;  for  if  they  were  beaten  when  they  made 
their  most  earnest  efforts  to  be  useful,  it  merely 
meant  that  their  brethren  had  more  power  of  use- 
fulness than  they,  and  so  the  thing  for  which  they 
strove  became  more  perfectly  accomplished. 

I  ask  myself  what  would  be  the  result  if  the  same 
teaching  of  Jesus  should  be  spoken  to  and  should 
be  accepted  by  all  of  this  great  world  of  competing 
men.  Here  are  these  eager  hearts  all  eager  to  out- 
strip each  other.  Rivalry  sparkles  in  every  eye, 
and  is  the  restless,  almost  frantic  power  which  keeps 
all  this  life  alive.  Suppose  some  mighty  power 
could  take  it  all  and  make  a  change.  Rivalry  is  not 
abolished,  but  the  object  of  rivalry  is  altered.  Not 
now,  who  shall  be  richest,  or  who  shall  be  most 
powerful,  or  even  who  shall  be  most  learned? — but 
who  shall  be  most  useful,  who  shall  be  most  abso- 
lutely devoted  to  the  good  of  fellow-man? — that  is 
the  question.  The  eagerness  is  kept  just  as  intense. 
The  city  glistens  and  palpitates  with  the  same  active 
life.  Each  man  upon  the  street  watches  his  neigh- 
bor with  the  same  keen  vigilance.  Only  the  purpose 
of  it  all  is  altered.  It  is  a  cornpetition  of  benefi- 
cence. It  is  a  rivalry  of  self-sacrificing  service.  All 
these  men  want  to  surpass  each  other  by  doing  a 
little  more  good,  by  taking  a  little  more  of  the  bur- 


THE    RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE  249 

den  of  life  upon  their  shoulders,  by  relieving  a  little  . 
more  of  misery,  by  lifting  a  few  more  of  the  fallen 
out  of  the  mire! 

You  say  it  is  impossible.  You  say  it  is  a  dream. 
I  answer  that  I  know  nothing  about  that,  and  I  do 
not  think  you  know  much  more  than  I  do.  I  think 
that  more  impossibilities  are  possible  and  more 
dreams  are  coming  true  than  we  have  any  idea  of. 
But  what  I  want  you  to  observe  is  this, — that  if 
such  a  great  rivalry  of  unselfish  service  ever  should 
come  to  pass,  it  would  probably  free  itself  almost 
entirely  from  those  evils  of  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
our  present  rivalries  stand  in  such  danger.  Tell  me, 
can  you  imagine  him  whose  only  competition  with 
his  brother  is,  which  shall  drag  the  most  men  out  of 
drunkenness — not  which  shall  get  the  credit  of  sav- 
ing the  most  men,  but  which  shall  really  save  them 
— the  whole  impulse  which  creates  the  competition 
being  the  pity  for  the  men's  perdition, — can  you 
imagine  tJiat  man  hindering  his  brother-worker  from 
doing  some  act  of  salvation  for  fear  that  his  brother- 
worker's  list  of  rescued  should  exceed  his  own?  Tell 
me,  can  you  imagine  the  man,  capable  of  entering 
into  such  a  rivalry,  deliberately  drawing  in  his  life 
and  consorting  only  with  the  least  useful  people,  so 
that  he  may  not  feel  himself  outstripped  ? 

Such  questions  answer  themselves.  This  nobler 
use  to  which  the  power  has  been  put  has  in  large 
degree  robbed  the  power  of  its  danger.  It  has  pre- 
served  its  best  and  cast  out  its  worst  tendencies.  It 
has  kept  all  its  energy  and  cast  out  all  its  narrow- 
ness.    It  has  made  man  able  to  struggle  with  his 


250  THE    RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE 

brother  and  to  work  all  the  harder  because  his 
brother  is  working  by  his  side;  and  yet  to  rejoice 
in  his  brother's  victory  as  if  it  were  his  own.  Such 
transfiguration  and  purification  come  to  a  power 
when  it  is  put  to  its  highest  use  I 

All  this  applies  not  merely  to  individuals  but  to 
those  larger  persons  which,  though  they  are  made 
up  of  many  beings,  have  still  a  personal  existence 
of  their  own.  It  applies  to  the  Christian  Churches 
and  their  rivalries  with  one  another.  "Which  of 
them  should  be  accounted  the  greatest?" — how 
Christendom  has  rung,  how  our  Christian  country 
rings  to-day  with  the  old  question!  There  is  not  a 
village  in  the  land  where  religion  is  not  defamed 
and  almost  dying  with  the  competition  of  rival 
churches.  The  country  as  a  whole  is  distracted 
with  the  denominationalism  which  is  simply  at  heart 
the  wrestling  of  denomination  with  denomination, 
which  of  them  shall  be  accounted  the  greatest. 
What  hope  is  there  of  any  peace?  Good  people 
dream  of  a  Christian  unity  which  shall  swallow  up 
denominational  differences  altogether.  They  pic- 
ture a  day  when  some  great  triumphal  assertion  of 
some  form  or  principle,  perhaps,  shall  have  merged 
all  these  contentions  and  competitions  in  one  mil- 
lennial agreement  on  that  principle  or  form.  It  is  a 
case  in  which  the  wish  is  father  to  the  thought. 
There  is  no  sign  which  promises  such  a  consumma- 
tion. It  is  not  in  the  killing  out  of  denominational- 
ism that  the  solution  lies.  The  solution,  at  least 
the  primary  and  immediate  solution,  lies  in  the  turn- 
ing of  denominational  rivalry  to  the  most  sacred 


THE    RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE         25 1 

uses.  Let  the  churches  of  the  land  stop  trying  to 
outstrip  each  other  in  the  number  of  their  adherents, 
in  the  abundance  of  their  wealth,  in  the  magnificence 
of  their  sanctuaries,  in  the  stateliness  of  their  ser- 
vice, and  let  each  of  them  be  honestly  set  to  do  all 
that  it  can — to  do,  if  it  can,  more  than  its  brethren 
for  the  attainment  of  truth,  for  the  service  of  the 
poor,  for  the  salvation  of  the  bodies  and  the  souls  of 
men;  and  then  what  a  change  would  come!  Still 
there  would  be  emulation,  but  it  would  be  a  holy 
emulation.  It  would  be  a  strange,  unworldly  emula- 
tion, in  which  each  party  struggling  to  surpass  the 
others  would  still  lift  up  its  voice  in  thankful  joy 
when  any  of  those  others  had  surpassed  its  best 
efforts  by  supreme  devotion  or  capacity.  It  would 
be  an  emulation  in  which  each  victor  would  honestly 
lament  that  those  whom  it  had  conquered  could  be 
conquered  by  such  a  feeble  servant  of  the  Master 
as  it  had  felt  itself  to  be! 

One  almost  sure  result  of  such  a  noble  rivalry 
would  be  that  every  church,  devoted  to  the  pro- 
foundest  purposes  for  which  any  church  exists, 
would  speedily  develop  its  own  especial  aptitude 
to  meet  those  purposes.  And  so  the  several 
churches — all  of  which  are  partial,  none  of  which  is 
final  or  complete — would  speedily  find  themselves 
working  in  different  but  parallel  lines  towards  one 
great,  broad  result,  which  should  freely  take  all 
their  several  successes  into  itself.  In  that  way  they 
would  best  come  to  know  their  real  unity;  to 
understand  that  neither  of  them  is  The  Church 
of  Christ,  that  The  Church  of  Christ  is  the  great 


252  THE   RELATIVE   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE 

aggregate  of  all  of  them  together  —  and  vastly 
more! 

But  let  us  leave  the  churches,  and  come  back  to 
sum  up  in  a  few  words  all  that  we  have  said  to-day 
about  the  principle  of  rivalry  as  it  affects  the  lives 
of  individuals.  Does  it  not  all  come  to  these  two 
exhortations  which  I  press  on  you  as  I  close?  The 
first  is  this:  As  far  as  you  can,  get  rid  of  emulation 
altogether.  Live  in  the  absolute,  not  in  the  rela- 
tive. Measure  yourself  not  by  the  unstable  stand- 
ard of  your  brother's  life,  but  by  the  great,  eternal, 
unchanging  patterns  of  life  which  are  kept  in  the 
treasury  of  God.  And  the  second  is  this:  So  far  as 
you  must  still  keep  rivalry  among  your  impulses, 
let  it  be  always  rivalry  for  the  deepest  and  truest 
things.  Refuse  to  enter  into  the  race  except  for  a 
prize  so  great  that  it  shall  rob  the  race  of  all  its  evil 
power.  Most  of  all,  make  the  great  object  of  your 
emulation  helpfulness  to  all  who  need  the  help  of 
fellow-man. 

He  who  is  Christ's  servant,  and  whom  Christ  has 
really  brought  into  the  presence  and  the  love  of 
God,  must  find  both  of  these  exhortations  gradually 
fulfilling  themselves  in  him.  May  Christ  become  so 
truly  our  Master  that  they  may  both  be  more  and 
more  fulfilled  in  us! 


XV. 

THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION. 

"  And  Samson  said,  Let  me  die  with  the  Philistines.  And  he 
bowed  himself  with  all  his  might ;  and  the  house  fell  upon  the  lords, 
and  upon  all  the  people  that  were  therein.  So  the  dead  which  he 
slew  at  his  death  were  more  than  they  which  he  slew  in  his  life." — 
Judges  xvi.  30. 

It  is  in  many  senses  that  the  Bible  is  justly  called 
the  "Book  of  Life."  No  doubt  that  name  belongs 
to  it  peculiarly  because  of  the  great  revelation  of 
the  higher  spiritual  life,  the  life  with  God,  the  life 
in  Christ,  which  fills  its  pages;  but  it  would  also 
describe  the  wonderful  profusion  and  variety  of 
vitality  of  every  sort  with  which  the  sacred  book 
abounds.  Think  over  the  Bible  from  beginning  to 
end,  and  ask  what  other  book  so  overruns  with 
character?  What  other  book  so  shows  the  endless 
diversity  of  human  action?  What  kind  of  man  is 
there  that  is  not  here?  What  human  strength  and 
weakness  is  assembled  in  this  company!  Where  is 
there  such  another  Book  of  Life? 

For  instance,  think  of  two  men,  one  from  the  Old 
Testament  and  one  from  the  New,  one  the  hero  of 
the  verse  which  I  have  read  you  for  our  text,  the 
other  the  gentle  disciple  of  the  Lord — Samson  and 

253 


254  THE   STRENGTH   OF   CONSECRATION 

St.  John,  the  savage  hero  of  Dan  and  the  spiritua^ 
youth  of  GalHIee.  How  large  must  be  the  system 
of  truth  which  can  conceive  of  the  relations  which 
both  of  these  men  hold  to  God,  which  can  see  God 
using  both  of  them  for  His  purposes!  How  broad 
must  be  the  stage  on  which  these  men  have  both 
their  parts  to  play!  One  of  them  is  the  world's 
picture  of  saintliness  and  love;  the  other  is  the  per- 
fection of  physical  vitality.  "As  holy  as  St.  John," 
we  say,  and  "As  strong  as  Samson";  and  the  same 
Bible  holds  them  both.  The  same  God  uses  them 
both,  and  so  shows,  in  the  long  history  where  they 
both  have  part,  the  completeness  of  humanity.  It 
is  no  partial  picture.  The  man  who  walks  the  Bible 
pages  is  the  full  man,  body  and  soul  together,  and 
so  the  Bible  is  the  Book  of  Life. 

I  am  led  to  speak  this  morning  of  the  great  cham- 
pion of  Israel  whose  name  has  become  through  all 
times  the  proverb  and  synonym  of  physical  strength. 
I  should  like  to  reach  with  you  some  of  the  mean- 
ings of  his  singular  life.  And  first  let  me  recall  to 
you  his  history.  It  was  a  time  of  depression  for 
Israel.  The  Philistines  had  conquered  the  Israel- 
ites, and  they  were  subject  to  their  savage  neigh- 
bors. In  the  country  of  Dan,  which  bordered  on 
the  Philistine  country,  one  day  an  angel  came  to 
a  childless  woman  in  a  field  and  told  her  that  she 
should  have  a  son  whom  God  would  use  for  the  de- 
liverance of  His  people  from  their  enemies.  The 
next  day  the  visit  and  the  promise  were  repeated, 
and  then  the  woman's  husband,  whose  name  was 
Manoah,  saw  and  heard  the  angel.     He  who  gave 


THE   STRENGTH   OF   CONSECRATION  255 

the  promise  made  the  conditions.  This  child  was 
to  be  made  a  Nazarite,  set  apart,  that  is,  and  con- 
secrated to  the  Lord.  The  symbols  of  his  conse- 
cration were  to  be  two:  he  was  to  taste  no  wine  nor 
strong  drink,  and  no  razor  was  ever  to  touch  his 
hair  or  beard. 

By  and  by  the  child  was  born,  and  he  grew  up  to 
manhood,  and  he  was  very  strong.  It  would  seem 
as  if  there  were  periods  of  excessive  strength  which 
he  recognized  as  given  to  him  by  God  for  a  peculiar 
purpose.  "  The  spirit  of  the  Lord  began  to  move 
him  at  times" — that  is  the  description  which  is  given 
of  the  strange  phenomenon.  Soon  he  began  his 
attacks  on  the  Philistines,  and  they  all  had  a  wild, 
grotesque,  almost  ludicrous  character.  He  played 
with  his  enemies  as  a  lion  plays  with  its  prey.  His 
full,  frolicsome  life  breaks  out  in  all  he  does.  He 
is  a  great,  good-natured  boy,  passionate  and  excita- 
ble, but  susceptible  and  impulsive,  and  apparently 
keeping  no  strong  hatred  even  for  the  people  whom 
it  was  the  mission  of  his  life  to  punish.  He  marries 
a  Philistine  woman,  and  at  the  wedding  feast  he 
provokes  a  quarrel  with  the  guests  about  a  foolish 
riddle,  which  led  to  his  killing  thirty  of  the  men  of 
Ashkelon  and  leaving  his  wife  and  her  people  in 
disgust.  He  comes  back  to  find  his  wife  given  to 
another,  and  he  revenges  himself  by  the  fantastic 
malice  of  turning  three  hundred  foxes  with  fire- 
brands tied  to  their  tails  among  the  standing  corn 
of  the  Philistines.  He  falls  into  their  hands  and  as 
soon  as  they  have  bound  him,  "  the  spirit  of  the 
Lord  came  mightily  upon  him  and  the  cords  that 


256  THE   STRENGTH   OF   CONSECRATION 

were  upon  his  arms  became  as  flax  that  was  burnt 
with  fire,  and  his  bands  loosed  from  off  his  hands. 
And  he  found  a  new  jaw-bone  of  an  ass,  and  put 
forth  his  hand  and  took  it,  and  slew  a  thousand  men 
therewith.  And  Samson  said,  '  With  the  jaw-bone 
of  an  ass,  heaps  upon  heaps,  with  the  jaw  of  an  ass 
have  I  slain  a  thousand  men.'  "  It  is  the  cry,  the 
laugh,  of  an  almost  boyish  triumph  over  the  havoc 
he  has  made. 

And  so  the  stream  of  his  life  flows  on  like  a 
mountain-stream,  falling  from  one  cascade  into  an- 
other, until  at  last  it  sweeps  into  dark  shadow. 
The  catastrophe  approaches.  Once  more  he  comes 
among  the  Philistines.  In  the  city  of  Gaza  he  falls 
in  love  with  a  woman  named  Delilah,  and  after 
many  times  playfully  deceiving  her,  he  gives  her  at 
last  the  secret  of  his  strength.  He  bids  her  cut 
the  flowing  locks  which  represented  his  consecration 
to  Jehovah.  When  those  were  gone  his  strength 
was  gone.  The  Philistines  bound  him  and  made 
him  captive  and  blinded  him.  As  his  strength 
slowly  returned  they  used  him  for  their  purposes. 
They  bound  him  to  a  mill,  and  made  him  labor  there 
like  a  beast.  At  last  came  the  day  of  his  revenge 
and  his  death  together.  He  was  brought  out  by  his 
tormentors  to  show  his  strength  at  a  great  festival 
for  their  amusement.  And  there,  when  he  had 
amused  them  for  a  time,  he  found  his  opportunity 
to  seize  the  pillars  of  the  house  where  the  flower  of 
Philistia  were  gathered  for  the  pageant.  "And 
Samson  said.  Let  me  die  with  the  Philistines.  And 
he  bowed  himself  with  all  his  might,  and  the  house 


THE    STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION  257 

fell  Upon  the  lords  and  upon  all  the  people  that 
were  therein,  so  the  dead  which  he  slew  at  his  death 
were  more  than  they  which  he  slew  in  his  life." 

Such  is  the  story.  It  is  a  story  which  at  once  we 
feel  belongs  to  the  youth  of  any  people.  Long  be- 
fore David  and  Isaiah  comes  this  champion  of  phy- 
sical power,  revelling  in  the  strength  of  his  right 
arm,  doing  all  kinds  of  wild,  fantastic  things  in  the 
exuberant  consciousness  of  being  so  strong.  It  has 
been  often  pointed  out  how  like  this  story  of  the 
Hebrew  Samson  is  to  the  Greek  myths  of  Hercules 
and  all  his  mighty  labors.  There  is  the  same  vast 
strength  and  the  same  weakness,  the  same  yielding 
to  the  power  of  woman,  the  same  captivity,  the 
same  open,  free,  fearless,  passionate  character.  Per- 
haps the  stories  may  have  some  connection  with  one 
another,  or  perhaps,  what  is  more  likely,  they  only 
indicate  how  back  of  all  conceptions  of  power  always 
li^s  this  first,  crudest,  but  most  manifest  and  indis- 
putable sort  of  power,  physical  strength.  It  is  the 
first  thought  of  God  which  man  receives.  "The 
heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament 
showeth  His  handiwork. "  "How strong  He  is!  "  is 
the  thought  that  starts  the  fear  or  wonder  of  the 
soul  which  is  just  getting  sight  of  God,  and  makes 
the  beginning  of  its  religion;  and  whatever  deeper 
things  it  learns  concerning  Him,  whatever  tidings 
of  His  love  and  wisdom  may  be  brought  to  it,  it 
never  must  lose  the  first  thought  of  God's  power. 
Any  religion  which  loses  that  loses  its  masculine- 
ness,  grows  weak  and  feeble.  The  "fear  of  God" 
comes  to  mean  something  very  much   higher  and 


258  THE   STRENGTH   OF   CONSECRATION 

finer  than  the  mere  sense  of  His  power.  It  comes 
to  mean  a  deep  and  awestruck  perception  of  all  His 
perfect  qualities,  but  it  can  never  leave  out  its  first 
meaning;  it  can  never  cease  to  mean  the  sense  that 
He  is  strong,  that  He  can  do  with  our  lives  and  the 
earth  on  which  they  swim  through  space  whatever 
He  shall  choose  to  do.  All  other  truths  of  what  He 
will  choose,  of  the  wisdom  and  the  love  with  which 
He  will  select,  must  be  clustered  and  twined  around 
this  first  truth  of  His  power,  that  He  can  do  what 
He  will. 

And  much  the  same  is  true  of  man.  There,  too, 
all  higher  culture  makes  us  see  that  there  are  quali- 
ties higher  than  physical  strength  in  man.  In  a 
certain  sense  civilization  is  always  making  physical 
strength  of  less  and  less  importance.  But  no  cul- 
ture, no  civilization,  can  ever  wholly  do  away  with 
its  significance.  There  is  still  an  instinctive  admira- 
tion for  the  strong  man  in  our  human  nature.  All 
young  men  will  begin  by  holding  it  in  honor,  even 
though  old  men's  philosophy  proves  that  it  is  of 
little  worth.  It  is  the  crudest  sort  of  force,  but  it 
is  the  most  manifest  and  the  most  immediately 
effective.  Men  are  always  coming  back  to  it,  and 
out  of  the  most  artificial  standards  of  what  is  honor- 
able are  always  returning  to  the  simplest  of  all  tests 
and  applauding  the  man  who  can  strike  the  hardest 
blow,  or  lift  the  heaviest  load,  or  march  the  longest 
journey.  And  if  we  told  the  truth,  down  at  the 
bottom  of  all  our  hearts  lies  an  envy  and  admiration, 
which  perhaps  we  should  be  slow  to  own,  but  which 
no  higher  standards  ever  totally  obliterate,  for  the 


THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION  259 

man  who  is  very  strong.  There  come  times  which 
hear  no  music  in  the  harp  of  David  and  are  unstirred 
by  all  the  aspirations  of  Isaiah,  but  Samson  is  never 
without  his  honor. 

As  we  think,  then,  of  Samson's  life,  let  us  re- 
member it  in  its  periods;  first  in  its  strength,  then 
in  its  fall,  then  in  its  disgrace,  then  in  its  second 
chance. 

I.  Of  Samson  in  his  strength  what  I  want  you  to 
notice  is  how  God  used  him,  with  all  his  imperfec- 
tions, and  his  crudities,  just  as  long  as  he  was  true 
to  the  consecration  of  his  life.  A  wild,  irregular, 
unaccountable  creature,  full  of  passion,  running  into 
sin,  he  still  kept  through  it  all  the  broad  birth-con- 
secration of  his  life  to  God.  Before  he  was  born  he 
was  named  a  Nazarite.  His  unshorn  locks  were  the 
witness  of  his  consecration ;  wherever  he  went  and 
men  saw  them  floating  wildly  like  a  banner,  men 
knew  that  there  went  a  man  who,  recklessly  as  he 
sometimes  lived,  terribly  as  he  sometimes  sinned, 
still  knew  and  owned  that  he  belonged  to  God, 
counted  his  strength  a  trust  of  God — not  his,  but 
God's, — and  knew  that  he  ought  to  use  it  not  for 
himself  but  for  the  purposes  of  Him  to  whom  it 
belonged.  Such  a  man  God  could  use.  A  wilful, 
wayward  weapon  he  would  often  be  in  the  Divine 
Hand,  but  wilful  and  wayward  as  he  was,  far  as  he 
was  from  being  a  perfect  servant,  still  the  confession 
of  servantship  was  in  his  heart,  the  consecration  to 
the  Lord  was  always  the  under-fact  of  his  existence 
to  himsejf,  and  so  God  used  him. 

And  that  is  a  perpetual  truth.     One  man  may  be 


26o  THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION 

more  wayward  than  another,  the  sort  of  force  that 
men  possess  may  differ  vastly,  may  be  in  one  man 
crude  and  coarse  and  in  another  fine;  but,  after  all, 
the  use  which  God  is  able  to  make  of  two  men  in 
this  world  depends  on  the  amount  of  the  consecra- 
tion-consciousness that  is  in  their  lives  and  souls. 
One  man  is  fine,  clear,  orderly,  cultivated,  finished, 
but  it  has  never  entered  into  his  thought  that  he 
lives  for  any  one  beside  himself.  Another  man  is 
like  Samson,  wild  and  disorderly,  passionate  and 
boyish  and  frolicsome  and  wanton,  but  all  the  time, 
wrought  into  the  very  muscle  of  his  strength,  there 
is  a  tough,  persistent  consciousness  that  he  belongs 
to  God.  Which  does  the  work  ?  Samson  may  go 
blundering  through  it,  doing  it  in  bad  taste,  dis- 
honoring it  very  often,  breaking  as  much  glass  as 
he  saves,  never  seeming  to  realize  how  great  the 
work  is  that  he  is  doing,  frolicking  over  it  and 
never  appearing  to  get  hold  of  its  best  motives  or 
meanings,  but  after  all  he  does  it.  The  Philistines 
fall  before  him.  He  believes  that  God  sent  him. 
But  the  other  man,  who  has  no  dream  of  any  con- 
secration, works  out  his  fine  conception,  criticises 
and  refines,  and  says  what  ought  to  be  done,  and 
does  nothing.  More  and  more  clear  it  grows,  I 
think,  that  it  is  the  sense  of  consecration,  however 
crude  and  rough  be  the  characters  in  which  it  works, 
that  God  uses  to  change  and  save  the  world. 

2.  And  this  makes  clear  the  next  point.  If  this 
was  Samson's  strength,  then  we  can  see  where  Sam- 
son's fall  came  from.  He  lost  his  consecration.  It 
seemed  a  little  thing.     In  a  weak  moment  he  let  a 


THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION  261 

wanton  woman  cut  his  seven-twisted  locks  of  hair. 
But  Samson  was  just  the  man  to  whom  a  symbol 
was  everything.  Those  locks  were  so  bound  up 
with  the  vow  that  had  been  made  before  his  birth, 
that  they  not  merely  stood  for,  they  ivere  his  con- 
secration. When  he  revealed  the  secret  that  his 
strength  lay  in  them,  and  really  bade  her  cut  them 
off,  he  knew  that  he  was  casting  away  that  tie  be- 
tween his  life  and  God's  which  had  given  him  all 
his  power. 

Ah,  men  will  talk  of  little  things  and  great  things 
as  if  they  knew  what  things  were  little  and  what 
things  were  great.  Men  read  this  story  and  they 
say:  "What  a  droll,  fanciful  old  legend!  As  if  the 
cutting  of  the  hair  could  have  had  anything  to  do 
with  the  man's  strength!  "  And  so  they  read  the 
third  chapter  of  Genesis  and  shake  their  heads  and 
say:  "What!  could  the  eating  of  an  apple  be  the 
ruin  of  the  world?"  As  if  their  own  experiences 
had  not  been  scattered  through  with  events  which 
ought  to  have  explained  to  them  how  powerful  and 
influential  may  be  an  act  which  seems  insignificant. 
Have  they  never  come  up  to  a  time  when  one  single 
act,  that  seemed  nothing  to  the  men  who  watched 
it,  meant  for  them  either  the  acceptance  or  the  re- 
jection of  the  mastery  of  God  over  their  souls,  and 
so  had  in  it  all  the  power  of  the  endless  blessing  or 
the  endless  curse  ? 

Why,  we  are  always  taking  or  refusing  to  take  the 
apple,  sacrificing  or  saving  the  locks  of  our  conse- 
cration. There  was  one  oath  in  your  life  that  threw 
away  your  reverence,  one  lie  that  decided  you  would 


262  THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION 

not  be  true,  one  cheat  that  petulantly  cast  off  the 
restraining  hand  of  God,  one  act  of  lust  that  gave 
your  soul  up  to  impurity,  one  drink  that  broke  the 
consecration  of  your  temperance.  You  cannot 
think  of  any  act  so  little — the  saying  "Yes  "  instead 
of  "No,"  the  going  up  the  street  instead  of  down — 
that  it  may  not  be,  when  you  do  it,  such  a  focal  act 
as  to  assume  most  tragical  importance.  It  may  be 
the  casting  aside  of  the  whole  purpose  of  your  life, 
the  saying,  "  I  will  not  have  this  man  to  rule  over 
me,"  the  giving  up  of  God,  the  taking  up  of  self, 
just  what  the  act  of  Samson  was  when  he  told  the 
secret  of  his  locks.  And  if  any  act  of  ours  be  thus 
the  sacrifice  of  the  purpose  and  consecration  of  our 
lives,  then  for  us  as  for  Samson  there  comes  weak- 
ness. Strength  goes  when  purpose  goes;  and  our 
unconsecrated  powers  may  be  bound  with  any  cords 
that  men  may  choose  to  bring. 

Is  not  this  what  the  story  of  Samson's  fall  really 
means  for  us, — that  if  we  sacrifice  our  consecration 
and  our  purpose  all  our  strength  is  turned  to  feeble- 
ness? It  is  true  even  of  our  physique,  I  think. 
The  very  strength  of  the  arm  is  weaker  when  the 
man  has  no  faith  in  his  cause  and  no  passionate  de- 
sire for  its  triumph.  The  soul's  devotion  passes 
into  the  muscles  and  prevails  to  conquer  the  foe  or 
break  open  the  dungeon  door.  "If  ye  have  faith 
ye  shall  remove  mountains  " — those  words  of  Jesus 
have  almost  a  literal  and  physical  truth.  But  it  is 
truer  of  the  other  forms  of  strength,  perhaps,  than 
of  the  strength  of  the  body, — at  least  one  wants  to 
dwell  on  it  most  concerning  tliem.     Of  intellectual 


THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION  263 

strength  it  is  supremely  true  that  it  gives  up  its  vigor 
when  it  loses  its  moral  purpose.  How  many  wit- 
nesses there  are  of  that!  How  many  ages  full  of 
ability  and  wit,  but  with  no  earnestness!  How 
many  men,  living  to-day,  or  dead  and  buried  long 
ago  in  graves  from  which  no  inspiration  rises,  who 
had  strength  of  mind,  clear  brains,  vivid  imagina- 
tions, scholarship,  taste,  and  yet  were  very  weak. 
They  laid  no  hand  upon  their  time,  they  exercised 
no  influence  on  men.  What  was  the  reason  ?  There 
can  be  only  one.  They  had  no  moral  purpose. 
They  cared  nothing  for  the  good  of  man  or  the  glory 
of  God.     They  had  given  up  their  consecration. 

In  days  when  every  other  element  of  strength  is 
glorified,  and  that  which  completes  them  all  and 
makes  them  really  strong  is  so  continually  forgotten 
or  despised,  surely  the  story  of  Samson  is  good  for 
us.  It  is  not,  I  think,  for  the  labor  of  science, 
which,  however  it  may  sometimes  lose  sight  of  the 
best  truth,  is  laboring  earnestly  for  the  human 
good, — it  is  not  for  this  that  we  ought  to  regret  and 
fear  to-day.  It  is  for  the  vast  amount  of  wholly 
purposeless  literature, — the  way  in  which  so  much 
of  the  best  intellectual  ability  of  this  time  is  work- 
ing solely  for  self-satisfaction, — it  is  in  the  prevalent 
selfishness  of  culture  that  its  greatest  weakness  lies; 
for  there  is  no  real  strength  in  anything  that  is  de- 
void of  moral  purpose.  The  book  that  is  written, 
the  state  that  is  built,  the  life  that  is  lived,  without 
a  consecration  is  weak,  however  brilliant  it  may  be. 
It  is  Samson  without  the  locks  of  his  Nazarite 
dedication. 


264  THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION 

O  my  dear  friends,  let  us  know — oh,  that  ah 
the  world  might  know,  indeed — that  everything, 
every  triumphant  work  of  genius,  every  assertion  of 
dogma,  every  construction  of  system,  ecclesiastical 
or  social,  is  weak,  weak  and  not  strong,  that  is  shorn 
of  the  crowning  glory  of  moral  purpose,  that  is  not 
bent  and  bound  and  dedicated  to  the  achievement 
of  goodness. 

3.  This,  then,  was  Samson's  fall.  Think  of  him 
next  in  his  disgrace  and  misery.  It  is  a  terrible 
sight.  "The  Philistines  took  him,  and  put  out  his 
eyes,  and  brought  him  down  to  Gaza,  and  bound 
him  with  fetters  of  brass,  and  he  did  grind  in  the 
prison  house."  That  last  clause  has  the  sting  of 
the  story  in  it.  Milton  in  his  wonderful  poem  has 
drawn  for  us  the  same  picture: 

Ask  for  this  great  deliverer  now,  and  find  him 
Eyeless  in  Gaza  at  the  mill  with  slaves, 

and  when  his  father  Manoah  comes  to  him,  he  asks 

Wilt  thou  then  serve  the  Philistines  with  that  strength 
Which  was  expressly  given  thee  to  annoy  them  ? 

That  is  the  true  depth  of  his  wretchedness.  Not 
merely  he  has  fallen  out  of  his  loyalty  to  God;  he 
has  fallen  into  the  slavery  of  these  brutal  savages. 
Look  at  him  where  he  toils ! — the  mighty  chest,  the 
brawny  arms,  the  limbs  like  columns,  the  muscles 
of  twisted  power  all  through  the  frame,  the  great 
form  bent  down  upon  the  heavy  mill-crank  which 
he  almost  gnaws  in  his  rage  as  he  slowly  heaves  it 
around ;  and  all  about  him,  mocking  him,  goading 


THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION  265 

him,  these  miserable  Phih'stines  who  are  his  masters 
Oh,  if  he  could  have  left  his  strength  behind  him 
when  he  fell!  oh,  that,  if  he  could  not  slay  them,  at 
least  he  might  not  serve  them  and  give  them  the 
advantage  of  his  God-given  power! 

And  if  the  bad  man  always  could  leave  his 
strength  behind  him  when  he  crossed  the  line  into 
sin,  if  in  proportion  as  he  grows  more  wicked  he 
grew  more  weak,  his  wickedness  would  not  seem  so 
terrible.  That  was  David's  ejaculation:  "If  I  for- 
get thee,  O  Jerusalem,  the  City  of  Holiness,  let  my 
right  hand  forget  its  cunning!  "  It  is  the  skill,  the 
thought,  the  subtlety,  the  work  that  is  laid  out  for 
wickedness,  the  cheat  and  burglar  lavishing  an  in- 
genuity that  was  made  to  enrich  the  world,  the 
deceiver  arguing  with  a  power,  glowing  with  an 
enthusiastic  genius  that  belong  to  truth; — these 
are  our  Samsons,  at  their  mil's  with  slaves.  Many 
a  bad  man  in  his  better  moments  curses  his  skill  in 
badness  as  Samson  must  have  cursed  his  strength 
when  the  Philistines  had  it  all.  "Samson  "  means 
"the  Sunny."  The  name  belongs  to  the  open, 
bright,  breezy  freshness  of  his  better  days;  see  him 
now  as  he  grinds  away,  moody,  blind,  desperate, 
with  his  hands  clutching  the  mill  as  if  they  would 
tear  it.  Yet  that  is  something — something  that  he 
should  hate  himself  and  hate  them  as  he  toiled  for 
them — something  that  he  should  grudge  them  the 
strength  that  belonged  to  God.  It  were  a  lower 
fall  still,  if  he  had  come  to  consent  to  his  slavery,  to 
do  the  will  of  God's  enemies  and  be  happy,  without 
a  self-reproach. 


266  THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION 

4.  And  so  we  come  to  what  I  called  Samson's 
second  chance.  While  he  was  toiling  at  the  mill 
his  hair  was  growing  again,  his  consecration  to  God 
was  renewed,  and  his  strength  became  once  more 
complete.  Then  came  the  Philistines'  festival,  the 
bringing  out  of  the  prisoner,  his  feats  of  strength, 
and  at  last  he  seizes  the  columns  of  the  palace  and 
drags  it  and  the  Philistines  and  himself  down  into 
death  together.  There  is  where  the  story  ends. 
The  champion  is  himself  again,  and  once  more  he 
does  the  same  service  for  God  and  God's  people; 
he  is  the  same  ruin  to  God's  enemies  as  at  the  be- 
ginning. "The  dead  which  he  slew  at  his  death 
were  more  than  they  which  he  slew  in  his  life." 
The  consecration  has  come  back  into  the  strength, 
and  once  more  he  wins  the  fame  and  works  the 
deliverance. 

Samson  hath  quit   himself   like   Samson,  and  heroicly  hath 

finished 
A  life  heroic,  on  his  enemies 
Fvlly  revenged,  hath  left  them  years  of  mourning. 

But  see  the  difference.  In  this  second  chance  he 
can  conquer  only  at  the  price  of  his  own  destruction. 
Look  at  the  youthful  hero,  rushing  with  a  shout 
after  his  foes,  clad  in  a  strength  which  "made  arms 
ridiculous,"  and  then  at  this  gray,  rugged,  silent 
man,  bent  down  between  the  columns  of  the  palace 
roof  and  tugging  at  their  weight  to  drag  them  on 
himself  as  well  as  on  his  foes.  No  longer  is  there 
the  radiant,  sunny,  easy,  joyous,  almost  frolicsome, 
air  of  his  first  victories.     That  is  all  gone  forever. 


THE    STRENGTH   OF   CONSECRATION  267 

Now,  nothing  but  the  heavy,  desperate  endeavor  to 
die  at  work. 

Yes,  God  does  give  men  a  second  chance;  but 
the  first  chance  never  comes  back  to  them.  A 
wicked  man  turns  from  his  wickedness.  An  old 
thief  struggles  back  to  honesty.  The  long  accumu- 
lations of  a  godless  life  are  cast  aside.  The  wanderer 
comes  home.  The  consecration  is  renewed.  There 
is  work.  There  is  patience.  There  is  even  hope. 
But  there  is  not,  there  cannot  be,  the  exhilaration, 
the  first  swing  of  life  which  was  there  before  the 
purity  was  stained,  before  the  vow  was  broken.  It 
is  worth  while — oh,  how  well  worth  while! — for  the 
oldest  and  vilest  to  take  the  new  chance  that  God 
gives  him.  It  may  be  that  even  he  in  his  chastened 
and  subdued  old  age  may  not  merely  save  himself 
but  do  good  service  for  his  Master;  but  let  us  not, 
in  our  glad  thankfulness  for  the  willingness  with 
which  God  takes  the  wanderer  back  and  gives  him 
another  chance, — let  us  not  get  to  think  that  the 
wandering  and  the  fall  were  anything  else  but  bad. 
Let  us  not  extenuate  it  or  excuse.  There  are  men 
now  serving  God  in  their  old  age,  serving  him  nobly 
in  their  second  chance,  but  still  the  first  chance  was 
the  brightest,  bright  with  a  brightness  that  never 
comes  again, — the  daylight  before  they  fell,  before 
those  blank,  dark  years  of  sin.  Most  shameful  and 
most  terrible,  as  one  sees  more  of  men,  becomes 
that  wretched  proverb  about  the  "wild  oats"  which 
fathers  and  mothers  quote  so  lightly,  which  expects 
men  to  be  bad  before  they  can  be  good,  which  robs 
men  of  the  bright  and  joyous  first  chance,  and  only 


268  THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION 

hopes  for  them  the  dogged  and  desperate  second 
chance  of  Samson.  Let  us  hate  it  with  all  our 
hearts! 

How  shall  I  speak  to  this  congregation,  made  up 
as  it  is  of  young  and  old?  Here  are  young  Samsons 
in  the  freshness  of  their  purity  and  strength.  Here 
are  old  Samsons  toiling  at  the  mill  of  sin.  Oh,  that 
I  could  preach  to  you  the  double  truth — the  first 
and  second  chance — and  let  neither  weaken  the 
other!  If  you  are  still  believing — pure  true,  conse- 
crated to  the  Lord  and  to  His  high  works,  and  there- 
fore strong,  oh,  keep  that  consecration !  Let  no 
promise  that  some  day  He  will  bring  you  back  to 
Him  tempt  you  to  wander  into  wickedness.  If  you 
have  already  wandered,  now  come  back!  It  never 
is  too  late !  If  only  that  you  may  die  in  His  service, 
give  up  your  sins,  renew  your  consecration,  and  do 
what  yet  you  can  for  Him  before  you  die! 

This,  then,  was  Samson's  strength,  and  fall,  and 
misery,  and  restoration.  Out  of  the  whole  survey 
of  him  there  comes  one  clear  impression  which  the 
vividness  of  his  personality  is  well  adapted  to  con- 
vey. It  is  of  the  personal  responsibility  of  the  man. 
That  is  so  evident  all  through!  This  healthy  hu- 
man creature  illustrates  splendidly  the  human  mas- 
tery over  circumstances  and  events.  There  is  not  a 
particle  of  feeble  and  unmanly  whimpering  about 
his  fate.  Philistines  conquer  him  only  when  he 
yields  and  puts  himself  into  their  power.  Once 
more  to  turn  to  Milton's  poem.  There  is  a  passage 
there  in  which  the  Philistine  harlot  meets  the  hero 
whom  she  has  ruined,  and  reproaches  him  that  he 


THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION  269 

should  lay  all  the  blame  on  her.  It  is  a  reproach 
which  we  can  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  world,  and 
fancy  it  rebuking  the  man  who  charges  it  with  hav- 
ing through  its  allurements  and  temptations  led  him 
into  sin,     Delilah  says: 

Was  it  not  weakness  also  to  make  known. 
For  importunity,  that  is  for  naught, 
Wherein  consisted  all  thy  strength  and  safety  ? 
To  what  I  did  thou  show'd'st  me  first  the  way, 

Ere  I  to  thee,  thou  to  thyself  wast  cruel. 

These  words  tell  the  whole  story  of  the  world's 
leading  men  into  sin.  We  say:  "If  I  had  not  met 
this  companion  I  never  should  have  been  so  frivo- 
lous or  mean."  "This  sceptic  made  me  sceptical." 
"This  failure  made  me  bitter."  "These  many  dis- 
tractions drove  my  deeper  thoughts  away."  "This 
badness  made  me  bad."  And  every  one  of  them,  all 
these  bad  things,  and  the  world  which  altogether 
is  made  up  of  them,  lifts  up  its  voice  and  flings  back 
our  pusillanimous  reproach:  "  'Ere  I  to  thee,  thou 
to  thyself  wast  cruel.'  You  betrayed  yourself,  or  I 
never  could  have  betrayed  you."  It  will  be  the 
bursting  forth  of  that  voice  from  all  the  things,  ani- 
mate and  inanimate,  which  we  have  turned  into  ex- 
cuses of  our  sin,  that  will  make  up  the  Judgment 
Day.  It  anticipates  the  Judgment  Day  in  time, 
when  a  man  hears  that  voice  now,  and  stops  saying, 
"These  things  have  ruined  me,"  and  begins  to  say 
frankly,  "I  have  sinned." 

And  now,  let  us  come  back  a  moment  to  where  we 


270  THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION 

began,  I  spoke  at  the  beginning  of  this  sermon 
about  two  strangely  contrasted  characters — Samson 
and  St.  John.  They  seemed  to  stand  very  far 
apart;  can  we  see  anything  which  they  have  to  do 
with  one  another?  In  other  words,  what  has  the 
Christian  faith  to  do  with  Samson,  the  man  of 
primitive  human  nature,  strong  in  the  first  strength 
of  man,  and  making  that  strength  powerful  as  he 
used  it  in  dedication  to  God? 

We  answer,  that  Christianity,  if  it  took  this  Old 
Testament  giant  in  hand,  certainly  would  not  try  to 
destroy  or  to  restrain  the  fresh  and  breezy  freedom 
of  his  life.  Its  joyousness  and  spirit  she  would  try 
to  keep.  Its  simplicity  and  humor  she  would  love. 
Its  childishness  she  would  undertake  to  educate, 
but  its  childliketiess  she  would  treasure  and  exalt. 

To  make  Samson  a  Christian !  In  our  modern 
ears,  with  our  modern  associations,  that  sounds 
ridiculous.  It  makes  us  laugh  to  think  of  taking 
this  boisterous  young  savage,  and  teaching  him  our 
doctrines,  and  bringing  him  to  our  meetings,  and 
making  him  talk  our  religious  talk;  for  that  is  what 
we  often  understand  by  being  a  Christian  nowadays. 
But  Christ  could  have  made  a  Christian  out  of  him, 
and  it  is  easy  to  see  how.  Keeping  his  strength, 
that  strength  which,  as  we  saw,  depended  wholly  on 
his  consecration  to  God,  Christ  could  have  made  his 
consecration  to  God  perfect.  First,  He  could  have 
shown  him  God  as  that  poor  bewildered  boy  of 
Dan  never  saw  Him.  Instead  of  that  dim  Jehovah 
after  whom  his  dull  imagination  reached.  He  could 
have  set  before  him  the  love  and  richness  and  per- 


THE   STRENGTH    OF   CONSECRATION  2/1 

fection  of  Divinity  in  His  own  perfect  life.  And 
then,  having  shown  him  God,  He  could  have 
bound  him  to  God  by  personal  love  for  Himself. 
Imagine  this  brave  young  soul  in  all  its  freshness, 
perfectly  seeing  God  and  perfectly  bound  to  Him 
by  love,  seeing  Him  and  devoted  to  Him  in  Jesus. 
How  strong  his  consecration  then  !  What  tempter 
could  have  overcome  it?  How  brave  his  onset! 
What  foe  could  have  withstood  it?  Where  shall 
we  find  the  picture  of  what  it  would  have  brought 
him  to,  except  in  that  Christ  Himself,  who,  stronger 
than  Samson,  had  in  Himself  perfectly  what  Samson 
had  so  imperfectly?  Jesus  is  the  Samson  of  the  di- 
vine life — strength  filled  with  consecration.  His 
strength  was  perfect  because  His  consecration  was 
perfect.  "Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,"  He  said, 
"the  Son  can  do  nothing  of  Himself,  but  what  He 
seeth  the  Father  do."  That  which  He  was,  He 
would  have  more  and  more  made  His  servant;  not 
robbing  him  of  one  glorious  flower  of  his  strength 
and  freedom,  but  making  all  his  strength  pure  and 
permanent  by  filling  it  with  God  through  the  chan- 
nel of  consecration  to  Himself. 

The  Christian  Samson,  then,  is  simply  the  man  in 
whom  Christ  does  this  work  to-day.  Fighting  and 
conquering  the  enemies  of  God,  joyful  and  radiant 
with  present  pleasure  and  perpetual  hope ;  springing 
up  with  a  sleepless  fountain  of  vitality;  so  free  that 
nobody  can  bind  him  from  doing  what  he  knows  is 
right  and  thinking  what  he  thinks  is  true;  so  strong 
that  no  wickedness  can  stand  before  him  or  in  him; 
happy  and  busy,  and  making  happiness  and  work 


2/2  THE   STRENGTH   OF   CONSECRATION 

about  him  as  the  sun  makes  light; — but  all  this  only 
because  he  is  perpetually  and  completely  conse- 
crated to  God  in  love  and  service  of  Jesus  Christ. 
To  him  there  can  come  no  blindness.  No  man  can 
make  him  a  slave,  or  chain  him  down  to  any  work  of 
sin.  He  is  strong  in  the  Lord  and  in  the  power  of 
His  might ;  and  he  goes  from  strength  to  strength 
until  at  length  in  Zion  he  stands  in  perfect  love  and 
consecration,  and  so  in  perfect  power  for  his  eternal 
work,  before  God. 


XVI. 

THE    DANGER   OF   SUCCESS. 

"Verily  I  say  unto  you,  They  have  their  reward.'' — Matthew 
vi.   2. 

The  soul  of  Jesus  was  stirred  within  Him  as  He 
went  about  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  and  saw  the 
multitude  of  hypocrites  who  passed  there  for  pious 
men.  He  saw  the  Pharisees  standing  in  the  syna- 
gogues and  in  the  streets,  distributing  their  charity. 
They  came  in  with  a  crowd  and  a  noise.  They 
stood  upon  the  highest  platform.  They  were  sur- 
rounded by  their  fawning  sycophants.  They  in- 
sulted every  poor  man  with  their  arrogance  before 
they  helped  him.  They  made  every  coin  sound  as 
they  dropped  it  and  tinkle  the  praises  of  their  gen- 
erosity, so  that  all  the  synagogue  or  all  the  street 
could  hear.  There  are  such  public  and  ostentatious 
almsgivers  in  the  East  to-day  doing  the  same  thing 
in  almost  precisely  the  same  way.  And  here,  where 
we  live,  in  the  West,  where  this  particular  way  of 
doing  it  would  be  ridiculous,  there  are  plenty  of 
people  doing  the  same  thing  after  an  Occidental  in- 
stead of  an  Oriental  manner,  "doing  their  alms  be- 
fore men,  to  be  seen  of  them."     These  are  the  men 

that  Jesus  looked  upon,  and  the  comment  that  He 
18 

273 


274  THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS 

made  upon  them  is  well  worth  our  study.  He  saw 
them  doing  a  certain  act  with  a  certain  object.  The 
act  and  the  object  for  which  they  did  it  were  ex- 
actly suited  to  one  another.  The  act  was  unspirit- 
ual  and  selfish,  and  the  object  was  unspiritual  and 
selfish,  too.  The  charity  they  gave  was  cold  and 
formal  and  unfeeling,  and  the  praise  that  they  ex- 
pected for  their  charity  was  the  cold,  formal  adula- 
tion of  men  whom  they  had  convinced  of  their 
importance.  In  their  charity  there  was  no  deep 
yearning  after  God  and  the  children  of  God ;  and  in 
the  applause  that  they  expected  they  found  a  per- 
fect satisfaction.  They  never  dreamed  of  creeping 
by  their  charity  a  little  nearer  to  God,  and  entering 
by  sympathetic  action  a  little  deeper  into  His  heart 
and  mind,  which  is  what  the  really  devout  soul  is 
always  longing  for. 

And  so  Jesus,  looking  at  the  meagre  nature  of 
their  charity  and  seeing  how  it  just  matched  the 
superficial  applause  which  it  excited,  said:  "Yes, 
verily,  I  say  unto  you  they  have  their  reward." 
They  get  what  they  are  after.  They  get  no  more. 
They  have  their  reward.  There  is  no  more  to  come, 
nog- eat,  unrealized  future  fruitage  of  their  action 
into  /hich  they  shall  enter  one  of  these  days.  It 
is  all  there.  Those  clapping  hands,  those  praising 
voices  are  all.  They  have  their  reward,  and  it  is 
ovjr.  But  yet  they  do  certainly  have  it.  Such  as 
it  is,  they  do  not  miss  it.  In  their  own  little  region 
their  actions  are  certainly  successful.  Nay — for,  as 
Jesus  speaks,  we  feel  as  if  His  words  were  certainly 
telling  the  story  of  condemnation, —  they  are  sue- 


THE    DANGER   OF   SUCCESS  275 

cessful,  and  it  is  that  very  success  that  ruins 
them. 

They  are  certainly  deep  words — these  words  of 
Christ.  They  are  not  such  words  as  many  of  us 
would  speak,  for  He  did  not  see  with  eyes  like  ours. 
His  words  touch  and  start  a  distinction  which  is  al- 
ways appearing  in  the  different  treatments  of  the 
low  and  selfish  lives  of  low  and  selfish  men.  You 
see  a  man  doing  a  selfish  thing,  or  living  a  selfish 
life.  He  is  working  for  a  low  and  little  purpose; 
what  shall  you  say  to  him  to  turn  him?  You  may 
tell  him  that  he  will  fail  in  what  he  seeks;  that, 
struggle  as  he  will,  he  never  will  be  rich;  that,  seek 
to  be  prominent  as  he  will,  he  never  will  make  men 
look  at  him ;  that,  desire  and  work  for  peace  and 
comfortableness  as  he  will,  very  few  men  attain 
what  he  is  working  for,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  he 
will  attain  it.  You  try  to  scare  him  off  with  the 
prophecy  of  failure.  That  does  not  do  much  good. 
Your  friend  knows  that  while  his  success  is  not  ab- 
solutely certain,  still  he  is  in  the  direction  of  suc- 
ceeding. Corrupt  men  do  get  rich  and  powerful,  he 
knows,  and  hypocrites  do  pass  for  saints,  and  men 
who  aspire  for  popularity  do  get  it  by  their  arts. 
He  will  not  ignore  facts.  A  few  exceptions  here  and 
there  will  not  make  him  believe  that  on  the  whole 
men  do  not  get  what  they  are  struggling  for,  and  so 
he  plunges  on  all  the  more  eagerly  for  your  warning. 

But  now,  suppose  you  take  just  the  other  tone. 
Suppose  you  say  to  him,  not  "You  will  fail,"  but 
"Probably  you  will  succeed."  That  was  what  Jesus 
said:  "Verily,  they  have  their  reward."     The  low 


276         THE  DANGER  OF  SUCCESS 

ambition  gets  what  it  desires.  The  cheat  does  get 
the  fortune.  The  demagogue  gets  the  popularity. 
The  hypocrite  gets  the  name  of  piety,  and  the  flip- 
pant sneerer  gets  the  name  of  wit.  You  say  to  your 
friend:  "If  you  go  on,  you  will  succeed.  You  will 
get  the  reward  that  properly  belongs  to  the  life  you 
have  chosen.  But  look  at  that  reward  and  see  what 
it  is  worth.  See  whether,  painting  it  at  its  very 
brightest  as  you  will,  it  is  indeed  worthy  of  your 
seeking.  See  whether  such  a  success  is  not  really  a 
dreadful  thing  for  a  man  to  come  to  and  be  satisfied 
with,  when  there  are  in  him  powers  of  such  a  differ- 
ent sort  that  might  bring  him  to  such  a  different 
issue.  Is  it  not  in  the  rewards  to  which  they  come 
that  the  real  hollowness  and  wretchedness  of  the 
things  that  you  are  doing  show  themselves  out 
most  manifestly?" 

Now  surely  this  is  the  truest  ground  to  take.  It 
looks  the  facts  most  truly  in  the  face.  I  do  not  be- 
h'eve  that  you  will  ever  make  the  drunkard  leave  off 
drink  by  telling  him  that  drink  does  not  exhilarate, 
nor  even  by  pointing  him  to  the  headaches  that  fol- 
low when  the  exhilaration  is  all  over;  but  only  by 
showing  him  what  a  poor,  low  thing  that  kind  of 
exhilaration  is, — of  how  much  better  a  man  like  him 
is  capable.  Point  him  to  the  crowd  of  rollicking  in- 
ebriates, happy  up  to  the  very  height  of  their  de- 
sires, in  the  complete  enjoyment  of  that  for  which 
they  have  given  up  clearness  of  brain,  and  tender- 
ness of  heart,  and  the  joys  of  pure  friendship,  and 
the  respect  of  men;  point  him  to  them  in  the  full 
glory  of  their  success  and  say:  "  'Verily,  they  have 


THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS  2;/ 

their  reward,' — what  do  you  think  of  it?"  I  do  not 
believe  you  will  ever  rescue  a  man  from  the  unrea- 
sonable slavery  of  business  by  telling  him  of  the 
chances  of  his  not  succeeding,  but  rather  by  taking 
him  and  showing  him  what  success  amounts  to. 
Show  him  the  man  who,  by  the  mere  business 
standard,  has  perfectly  succeeded.  Show  him  a  life 
all  given  up  to  trade,  and  now  travelling  down  to- 
wards the  grave  with  hands  burdened  with  a  fortune 
that  it  cannot  use.  Show  him  the  stunted  nature; 
show  him  the  table  spread  with  food  that  the  sick 
man  cannot  taste,  the  library  crowded  with  books 
that  the  uncultured  man  cannot  use,  the  free  admis- 
sion won  at  last  into  a  society  that  the  mere  busi- 
ness machine  cannot  enjoy.  Show  him  success. 
Show  him  the  rich  man,  whose  life  has  been  given 
up  to  getting  his  riches,  at  last  in  full  possession  of 
all  he  has  been  struggling  for;  and  then,  with  the 
gorgeous  picture  glowing  full  before  his  eyes,  ask 
him:  "Is  that,  then,  what  you  want?  Does  that 
then,  satisfy  you?  Verily,  he  has  his  reward, — is 
that  the  reward  you  want?"  And  many  a  time,  he 
who  would  have  braved  defiantly  every  threat  of 
failure,  will  feel  the  scales  fall  from  his  eyes  and 
turn  away  disgusted  as  he  looks  at  the  poor,  drudg- 
ing mortal  cursed  by  his  complete  success. 

I  should  like  to  speak  to-day  about  the  danger  of 
success.  We  hear  a  great  deal  about  the  danger  of 
failure,  and  yet  there  are  many  things  in  which  it  is 
much  more  dangerous  to  succeed  than  it  would  be 
to  fail.  So  many  men  have  been  ruined  by  suc- 
ceeding in  what  they  undertook,  who  might  have 


2/8        THE  DANGER  OF  SUCCESS 

been  saved  by  failing.  Let  us  look  at  it,  and  see 
what  are  some  of  the  most  prominent  of  the  dangers 
of  success. 

And  perhaps  I  can  show  it  by  certain  illustrations, 
by  citing  certain  common  cases.  Take  a  man  who 
goes  into  public  life.  His  object  is  to  win  public 
applause  and  so  to  win  power.  He  has  looked  no 
higher  than  that.  He  has  never  aspired  to  true  ser- 
vantship  of  the  people,  nor  to  a  real  incorporation  of 
the  great  principles  of  government  into  the  life  of 
the  people  he  is  set  to  rule.  There  is  nothing  either 
of  the  philanthropist  or  of  the  philosopher  about  his 
politics.  Well,  by-and-by,  he  succeeds.  The  peo- 
ple begin  to  praise  him.  He  comes  up  to  higher 
and  higher  office,  and  he  wins  little  by  little  the 
power  that  he  wants.  To  keep  that  power  and  to 
use  it  then  becomes  the  business  of  his  life.  He 
looks  no  higher.  He  values  no  other  sort  of  attain- 
ment. He  has  done  his  best,  and  has  succeeded. 
What  shall  we  say  about  him?  If  he  were  a  friend 
of  yours  and  if  you  had  been  watching  him  and 
really  desiring  his  best  good,  and  if  you  really  saw 
how  poor  that  prize  was  which,  if  he  should  reach 
it,  would  almost  certainly  have  cut  off  all  chance  of 
spiritual  growth  and  progress  into  higher  ambitions 
from  him  forever,  would  you  not  rather  have  seen 
him  fail  than  succeed?  Would  not  failure,  perhaps, 
have  cast  him  back  and,  even  if  from  mere  disgust 
at  first,  still  have  compelled  him  to  cast  aside  the 
unsuccess  of  policy  and  perhaps  to  have  taken  up 
with  principle?  Certainly,  there  have  been  public 
men  enough  who  have  seemed  to  learn  what  princi 


THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS  279 

pie  was  for  the  first  time  only  when  all  their  plans 
of  self-advancement  had  come  to  woeful  failure. 
And  there  have  been  plenty  of  public  men  who 
seemed  to  say  good-by  to  principle  and  pure  am- 
bitions the  moment  that  their  public  life,  after  long 
disaster,  graduated  from  failure  into  success. 

Or  take  the  success  of  many  a  merchant.  In  a 
mercantile  community  like  ours  this  must  be  what 
oftenest  forces  itself  upon  our  notice.  In  every  oc- 
cupation there  are  certain  special  faculties  em- 
ployed. To  seem  to  have  those  faculties  supremely 
is  the  pride  of  him  who  is  ambitious  in  that  special 
occupation.  To  seem  to  be  supremely  shrewd  and 
practical,  to  seem  to  be  sharp,  smart,  quick  at  the 
turn  of  a  bargain,  able  to  make  money  and  able  to 
keep  it, — this  is  the  whole  ambition  of  many  a  busi- 
ness man.  This  is  what  multitudes  of  clerks  are 
striving  for  in  emulation  of  their  principals.  When 
they  have  reached  this,  they  will  seem  to  themselves 
to  have  reached  the  purpose  of  their  life.  But  when 
we  see  what  such  a  success  makes  out  of  many  men, 
how  it  hardens  them  with  selfishness  and  narrows 
them  with  pride;  when  we  see  how  many  young 
men  who  started  full  of  various  generous  desires, 
aspiring  after  self-culture,  dreaming  of  knowledge, 
craving  usefulness,  sensitive  to  religion,  gentle  with 
reverence,  are  swept  by  their  mere  business  success 
into  the  close  and  confined  career  of  the  man  who 
has  no  desire  but  for  money, — as  a  wide  river  that  lay 
open  to  the  sunlight  and  lavished  its  fruitfulness  on 
broad  banks  and  on  the  shores  of  happy  islands,  is  by- 
and-by  all  crowded  and  cramped  in  between  narrow 


280         THE  DANGER  OF  SUCCESS 

granite  walls,  where  it  foams  and  frets  and  rages 
and  is  hurried  on  like  a  whipped  slave, — when  we  see 
this  (and  it  is  what  our  great  business  cities  are  full 
of)  are  we  not  ready  to  cry  of  many  a  man  :  "Oh,  if 
he  had  only  failed  and  not  succeeded  !  "  Are  we  not 
ready  to  pray  for  a  friend,  whose  best  good  we  de- 
sire, that  he  may  not  succeed  too  much?  Do  we 
not  feel  the  danger  of  success? 

But  I  want  to  apply  the  same  idea  in  a  higher  field 
— in  the  field  of  religion.  What  I  have  just  been 
saying  all  will  agree  to;  what  I  would  say  about  re- 
ligion is  no  less  true,  though  perhaps  not  so  clear. 
Can  there  be  a  danger  of  too  much  success  in  re- 
ligion? Is  it  possible  that  there  can  be  peril  to  a  man 
from  being  too  easily  prosperous  in  the  religious  life? 

Let  us  remember  what  religion  is,  what  its  great 
purpose  is.  The  purpose  of  religion  is  to  bring  the 
human  soul  to  God.  The  soul  religiously  successful 
is  the  soul  that  really  has  come  to  God,  and  laid  it- 
self on  Him  in  perfect  love  and  absolute  obedience. 
Of  that  success  there  cannot  be  too  much.  To  all 
eternity  the  soul  of  man  redeemed  shall  always  be 
coming  nearer  to,  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  soul  of 
God.  But  that  final  and  complete  attainment  is 
reached  through  other  attainments ;  and  one  of  these 
subordinate  attainments  is  the  clear  and  certain  hold- 
ing of  doctrinal  truth.  It  is  a  subordinate  attain- 
ment; not  to  know  truth  but  to  come  to  God  is  the 
ultimate  glory  of  religious  life.  And  now,  if  it  is 
sometimes  the  case  that  the  easy  and  comfortable 
acceptance  of  truth,  the  ready  belief  of  these  great 
verities  of  Christianity,  hinders  instead  of  helps  the 


THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS  28 1 

soul  in  its  approach  to  God;  then,  even  here,  there 
is  an  instance  of  the  danger  of  success  that  is  most 
striking  and  that  we  ought  to  understand.  It  is  not 
easy  to  state.  I  think — at  least  I  hope — that  I  have 
made  it  clear  to  you  often  enough  that  I  have  no 
sympathy  with  nor  tolerance  for  the  disbelief  that 
disbelieves  for  the  mere  pride  of  disbelieving,  God 
forbid  that  I  should  ever  lead  any  soul  to  think  that 
the  simplicity  and  directness  of  its  faith  was  a  sign 
that  its  faith  was  superficial  or  insincere.  Let  me 
never  seem  to  teach  that  doubt  in  itself  is  better 
than  belief  as  such.  But  while  I  say  this  strongly, 
none  the  less  I  am  sure  that  there  is  a  certain  doubt 
that  is  better  than  a  certain  belief.  There  is  a  be- 
lief that  is  traditional,  easy  because  it  never  asks  a 
question,  placid  because  it  is  so  shallow,  and  that, 
calm  as  it  looks,  is  not  so  good  as  the  tumult  of 
eagerness,  which,  making  religion  a  thing  of  life  or 
death,  will  not  be  satisfied  till  it  has  had  an  answer 
to  a  hundred  questions,  to  know  the  answers  to 
some  of  which  a  man  must  verily  be  God  Himself. 

And  now,  if  a  man  makes  it  the  object  of  his 
Christianity  not  to  come  near  to  God,  but  merely  to 
establish  himself  in  a  certain  set  of  doctrines;  and  if 
in  time  he  reaches  his  desire  and  stands  with  his 
creed  all  compact  and  formulated,  each  part  fitted 
into  its  neighbor  part  so  that,  whatever  happens,  no 
shock  ever  comes  to  the  structure  of  his  well-jointed 
faith, — what  shall  we  say  of  him?  What  can  we  say 
but  just  what  Jesus  said?  "Verily,  he  has  his  re- 
ward." He  has  built  up  his  faith,  and  he  keeps 
it   so   abstract,    so    apart    from  these   terrible   live 


282  THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS 

problems  that  are  rampant  in  the  world,  that  it  never 
feels  their  disturbing  influence.  While  other  men 
are  shaking  with  bewilderment,  while  David  is  per- 
plexed and  troubled  at  the  dreadful  mysteries  of 
Providence,  while  Paul  is  wondering  at  God's  treat- 
ment of  him,  this  man's  faith  stands  apart  and  un- 
shaken. He  looks  with  pity  or  contempt  on  every 
doubter.  He  lives  a  more  comfortable  mental  life 
than  they  do,  but  he  does  not  accomplish  so  com- 
pletely the  real  purpose  of  all  religion — he  does  not 
come  so  near  to  God.  He  has  his  reward  in  careless 
days  and  peaceful  nights.  But  it  is  not  good  for 
him.  Some  time  or  other  God  blesses  him  if  He  lets 
a  great  sorrow  or  a  great  bewilderment  plow  down 
through  his  easy  faith,  and  turn  it  up  in  great  fur- 
rows to  the  very  core. 

And  what  is  true  about  faith  is  true  also  about 
peacefulness.  That,  too,  is  dangerous  if  it  is  not 
pure  and  thorough  and  profound.  A  man  accepts 
some  superficial  and  mechanical  notion  of  Christi- 
anity. He  learns  to  think  that  his  soul  is  in  danger; 
by  which  he  does  not  mean  that  his  best  powers  are 
in  danger  of  degradation  and  that  his  spiritual  vital- 
ity— his  love  and  truth — is  dying  away  from  him. 
He  means  that  he  has  been  wicked,  and  God  is  go- 
ing to  punish  him  with  suffering.  To  get  rid  of  that 
suffering  is  his  one  desire.  And  by  and  by  he  con- 
vinces himself  that,  by  some  one  thing  that  he  has 
done,  that  suffering  is  got  rid  of,  that  God  has  let 
him  go  out  of  His  revengeful  hands  and  he  is  free. 
The  moment  of  his  freedom  he  may  describe  differ- 
ently.   It  may  be  the  moment  when  he  felt  a  certain 


THE    DANGER   OF   SUCCESS  283 

inside  emotion  ;  it  may  be  the  moment  when  he  sub- 
mitted to  a  certain  outside  sacrament;  but  the  pe- 
culiarity of  all  such  thoughts  of  Christianity  is  this, 
— that  they  put  the  whole  work  at  one  special  mo- 
ment and,  that  once  past,  the  soul  released  from  the 
threatened  penalty,  thenceforth  the  whole  is  done, 
the  man  is  among  the  elect,  among  the  saved,  the 
chosen,  and  he  has  nothing  to  do  but  be  at  peace 
and  rejoice  in  his  already  perfected  salvation.  The 
soul  convinced  of  this  settles  into  the  consciousness 
of  its  own  happiness  and  easily  grows  pharisaical  as 
it  looks  at  the  poor,  troubled  spirits  which  have  not 
reached  the  rest  it  has  attained. 

What  is  there  that  shall  disturb  it?  Salvation, 
for  it,  means  the  escape  from  everlasting  punish- 
ment ;  and  the  warrant  of  that  escape  it  holds  firmly, 
written  in  the  red  blood  of  Christ.  What  shall  it 
seek  for  more?  For  it,  no  daily  struggle  to  grow 
near  to  Christ,  no  daily  sense  of  how  far  off  from 
Christ  the  soul  is  living,  keeps  the  whole  nature  in 
disturbance.  No  fight  with  sin,  no  dissatisfaction 
with  itself,  no  half-despairing  sense  of  its  own  feeble- 
ness ever  coming  up  into  sight,  no  impatience  after 
the  Christ  who  as  the  soul  approaches  Him  seems  to 
loom  up  all  the  more  forbidding  as  He  is  the  more 
tempting  in  His  purity, — none  of  all  this  ever  dis- 
turbs with  a  ripple  nor  darkens  with  a  cloud  the  per- 
fect peacefulness  of  the  soul  which,  with  its  purely 
mechanical  conception  of  religion,  thinks  itself  safe, 
and  with  its  cushions  and  its  comforts  travels  along 
to  its  assured  and  entirely  unawful  heaven.  God 
forbid     that    I    should    depreciate    or    deny    the 


284  THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS 

Christian's  peace  in  Christ,  but  this  is  something 
wholly  different  from  that.  That  is  a  peace  consistent 
with  eagerness,  anxiety,  and  toil,  "Woe  unto  them 
that  are  at  ease  in  Zion !  "  The  man  who  gives  up 
seeking  to  be  like  God,  and  makes  his  religious  satis- 
faction to  consist  in  the  assurance  that  he  is  not  go- 
ing to  be  punished  in  the  other  world,  gets  what  he 
seeks.  He  attains  a  comfortable  peacefulness.  He 
has  his  reward ;  but  it  would  be  better  for  him  if  he 
never  had  it,  for  that  very  peacefulness  and  satisfac- 
tion keep  him  away  from  God. 

And  the  same  thing  is  true  of  Christian  influence. 
We  all  know  that  we  ought  to  do  good  to  one  an- 
other, that  what  the  Lord  has  given  us  was  not 
given  us  for  ourselves  alone,  but  for  our  brethren 
too.  And  there  are  powerful  and  effective  ministries 
which,  as  we  look  about,  we  all  know  that  we  can 
render  to  some  one  or  some  number  of  people  by 
our  side.  But  the  best  ministry,  the  real  ministry 
of  one  soul  to  another  is  always  of  a  laborious  and 
quiet  sort.  It  requires  studious  sympathy.  It  must 
draw  near  to  the  nature  that  it  wants  to  help,  in  pa- 
tient, silent  ways.  Very  often  it  must  sacrifice  the 
favor  of  its  object,  and  even  provoke  his  enmity, 
that  it  may  deal  frankly  with  him  and  do  him  good. 
All  this  is  laborious  and  makes  no  noise,  and  so  it  is 
no  wonder  that  a  more  prominent  and  easier  type  of 
work  for  fellow-men,  an  external  and  unsympa- 
thetic lecturing  of  men's  sins,  takes  the  place  of  this 
unseen,  painful  work  which  goes  on  so  toilsomely, 
so  silently,  between  soul  and  soul. 

Oh,  it  does  almost  anger  one  sometimes,  when 


THE    DANGER   OF   SUCCESS  28$ 

one  is  in  his  weakest  moods,  most  capable  of  being 
angered,  to  see  who  are  the  most  recognized  laborers 
for  fellow-men,  the  helpers  of  their  brethren  whom 
all  men  praise.  The  cheap  satirist  of  social  vices, 
who  never  goes  down  to  their  bottom  to  cure  the 
social  discontents  out  of  which  they  spring;  the  pro- 
fessional philanthropist,  the  preacher  or  the  lecturer 
who  only  abuses  his  fellow-men  and  never  tries  to 
understand  them;  the  busy-body  giver  of  advice 
who  flutters  here  and  there  like  a  stupid  gardener 
through  his  garden,  pulling  up  all  the  flowers  that 
will  not  grow  just  his  way; — all  these  are  the  men 
whom  people  praise  and  say,  "See  how  much  good 
they  do!  " 

But  where  is  the  good  really  doing?  Not  where 
men  see  it  or  praise  it  at  all.  There  is  a  great  up- 
ward movement  of  humanity,  the  better  part  lifting 
the  worse  part  always,  but  it  is  as  silent  a  process  as 
when  the  hidden  leaven  creeps  through  the  heavy 
loaf,  or  when  the  subtle  springtime  pervades  the 
sluggish  earth.  Wherever  any  soul,  without  the 
slightest  Pharisaism,  is  just  infusing  its  noblest 
power  by  sympathy  into  some  brother  soul — father 
helping  child  and,  quite  as  often,  child  helping 
father;  teacher  entering  into  the  life  of  scholar,  em- 
ployer touching  his  clerks'  temptations  with  the 
strength  of  his  maturer  life;  and  friendship  every- 
where creating  the  atmosphere  of  life  which  makes 
unconsciously  the  moral  strength  of  one  to  be  the 
moral  strength  of  many; — in  all  such  cases  the  real 
help  of  man  by  man,  the  real  influence  of  man  over 
man,  is  at  work.     While  more  and  more  suspicious, 


286  THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS 

certainly,  seem  the  loud  professions  of  those  who 
claim  to  be  the  helpers  of  their  fellow-men,  more 
and  more  beautiful  and  precious  seem  to  me  the  un- 
conscious ministries  by  which  earnest  and  loving 
souls  win  other  souls,  and  never  know  the  blessed 
work  they  do.  The  first  win  their  brethren's  ap- 
plause; the  others  win  their  brethren's  souls,  and 
that  is  better.  The  first  win  applause,  and  they  have 
their  reward;  but  if  success  is  dangerous  anywhere, 
it  is  never  so  dangerous  as  when  men  succeed  in 
making  other  men  believe  that  they  are  self-sacrifi- 
cing and  devoted,  because  the  risk  is  so  great  that 
they  will  rest  in  their  fellow-men's  fond  gratitude, 
and  never  do  the  hard,  unnoticed  work  by  which 
alone  men  do  really  come  close  to  and  give  real  aid 
to  one  another. 

So  we  might  go  on  with  many  illustrations.  The 
fact  which  all  of  them  illustrate  seems  only  too  plain. 
Is  it  not  this?  I  beg  you  to  notice  it,  remember  it, 
see  if  it  is  not  true — that  every  work  which  it  is 
right  for  man  to  do  has  its  legitimate  and  true  result, 
hard  to  attain,  and  more  manifest  to  God  than  to 
men  when  it  is  attained ;  and  that  these  perfect  re- 
sults of  things  have  always  certain  copies  or  imita- 
tions or  counterfeits  which  look  like  them,  which 
are  easy  to  reach  and  which  attract  men's  attention; 
that  the  counterfeit  result  is  always  trying  to  slip 
itself  into  the  place  of  the  real  result,  and,  further- 
more, that  a  success  in  the  attainment  of  the  coun- 
terfeit is  dangerously  apt  to  delude  men  and  distract 
them,  and  turn  them  off  from  the  reality  they  ought 
to  be  pursuing. 


THE   DANGER  OF   SUCCESS  287 

I  do  not  know  the  occupation  to  which  this  will 
not  apply,  in  which  the  true  ambition  is  not  always 
haunted  by  a  false  ambition  that  is  always  trying  to 
slip  into  its  place.  The  merchant's  service  to  the 
community  and  his  own  self-interest — the  politi- 
cian's public  spirit  and  his  ambition — the  school 
teacher's  desire  to  teach  his  scholars  and  his  desire 
to  make  them  shine — the  minister's  wish  to  save 
souls  and  his  wish  to  be  popular — the  lawyer's  love 
for  justice  and  his  love  for  technicalities — the 
church-member's  love  for  men's  souls  and  his  pride 
in  the  growth  of  his  denomination — the  Christian's 
longing  for  truth  and  God  and  his  satisfaction  in  a 
creed  and  in  safety, — everywhere  the  sham  besets 
the  reality,  the  counterfeit  lurks  close  beside  the 
genuine  and  tries  to  make  men  accept  it  in  her  place. 
If  men  do  take  it  they  get  their  reward,  but  the 
temporary  peace  or  pleasure  that  they  gain  is  paid 
for  by  the  loss  of  fuller  culture  and  the  final  joy 
which  only  the  real  and  perfect  things  can  give.  Oh, 
for  more  thoroughness,  no  matter  what  it  costs!  for 
more  determination  to  be  satisfied  with  nothing  but 
the  highest  and  the  best! 

It  would  seem  as  if  this  subject  of  ours  was  closely 
bound  up  with  the  most  fundamental  things — with 
the  largeness  of  life,  and  the  limitation  and  sin  of 
man  which  make  it  impossible  for  him  to  compre- 
hend it  all.  In  a  perfect  world,  inhabited  by  perfect 
and  sufficient  men,  every  good  act  would  have  four 
facts  manifestly  and  necessarily  belonging  to  it.  In 
the  first  place,  it  would  be  good, — there  would  be  its 
own  inherent  and  essential  righteousness.      In  the 


288  THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS 

second  place,  it  would  do  good  to  a  world  all  ready 
to  receive  it, — there  would  be  its  immediate  useful- 
ness. In  the  third  place,  it  would  give  pleasure  to 
the  pure  nature  out  of  which  it  sprang, — there  would 
be  a  spontaneous  and  genuine  pleasure.  And, 
fourthly,  it  would  win  applause  from  all  men,  since 
all  would  instinctively  recognize  it, — there  would  be 
its  easy  and  ungrudged  popularity.  Righteousness, 
usefulness,  pleasure,  popularity, — all  these  belong  to 
the  perfect  action  done  in  the  perfect  world ;  all 
these  shall  come  to  it  in  the  world  that  shall  be  per- 
fect. In  heaven  every  good  act  shall  have  not  merely 
its  own  essential  excellence,  but  it  shall  leap  at  once 
into  some  blessed  influence,  it  shall  fill  with  unmixed 
joy  the  soul  of  him  who  does  it,  and  all  the  multi- 
tudes of  the  New  Jerusalem  shall  see  its  beauty  in- 
stantly and  praise  it  with  hearts  incapable  of  envy 
or  detraction. 

But  noiv,  in  this  imperfect  world,  with  these  im- 
perfect men,  how  is  it?  Where  is  the  act  that  wins 
all  these  deserts  of  goodness?  Where  is  the  act 
that  is  righteous  and  useful  and  delightful  and  pop- 
ular all  at  once?  Once  in  a  lifetime  there  may 
come  such  a  golden  act,  but  how  few  they  are !  The 
experience  of  any  noble  life  seems  to  be  very  largely 
occupied  in  cutting  off  and  giving  up  the  inferior 
and  more  accidental  characteristics  of  goodness  in 
order  that  its  more  precious  and  essential  ones  may 
be  maintained.  We  begin  at  the  bottom  of  our  list. 
My  righteous  act  ought  to  win  men's  praise,  but  let 
me  surrender  their  praise  without  a  murmur  if  only 
my  own  soul  finds  joy  in  doing  what  is  right.     But 


THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS  289 

even  that  may  have  to  go.  I  ought  to  enjoy  doing 
righteousness,  but  if  there  is  a  righteous  thing  that 
will  help  my  brother  at  my  side,  let  me  do  it,  though 
I  get  no  pleasure  from  it,  though  I  dread  and  hate 
it.  And  even  that  usefulness  may  have  to  go.  Not 
even  to  help  my  fellow-man,  dear  and  sacred  as  that 
duty  is,  not  even  to  help  him  must  I  do  anything 
that  is  not  righteous  in  itself. 

My  dear  friends,  may  we  not  describe  the  differ- 
ence in  men's  lives  simply  by  saying  that  it  depends 
on  whether  they  begin  at  the  top  or  bottom  of  that 
scale  in  their  choice  of  actions?  One  man  begins  at 
the  top  and  runs  down:  Righteousness,  if  it  is  con- 
venient; usefulness,  if  it  comes  in  my  way;  pleas- 
ure, if  I  can  arrange  it;  but  popularity  anyhow! 
Another  man  begins  at  the  bottom  and  runs  up: 
Applause,  if  men  choose  to  give  it  to  me;  pleasure, 
if  God  bestows  that  privilege;  usefulness,  if  I  may 
have  so  great  and  sweet  a  boon ;  but  righteousness 
certainly,  though  everything  else  must  go  with  one 
sweep  to  attain  it. 

Which  class  do  we  belong  to?  As  we  look  at  the 
life  of  lives,  the  life  of  Jesus,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
about  Him.  He  trod  popularity  under  his  feet.  He 
let  pleasure  go,  and  lived  a  life  of  pain.  He  would 
not,  even  to  help  men,  go  out  of  the  way  of  right- 
eousness. Nothing  could  weigh  with  Him  against 
the  necessity  that  He  should  do  His  Father's  Will. 
Do  you  think  He  did  not  care  for  all  the  others? 
Was  not  the  praise  of  brother-man  sweet  to  His  in- 
tense and  genuine  humanity?  Did  not  that  perfect 
nature  delight  in  the  pleasures  that  humanity  was 


290  THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS 

made  to  feel?  Let  us  never  picture  to  ourselves  the 
Lord  as  an  unsensitive,  hard  man,  to  whom  it  cost 
nothing  to  give  up  the  things  that  other  men  yield 
to  and  that  occupy  their  lives.  He  felt  every  sur- 
render as  we  do  not  know  how  to  feel  it,  but  He 
turned  away  to  do  that  Will  which  He  had  come  to 
do,  that  Will  which  was  to  Him  the  one  precious, 
absolute  thing  in  the  universe;  and  as  He  looked 
back  on  His  brethren  seeking  their  pleasure,  winning 
one  another's  praise,  it  was  with  a  keen  appreciation 
of  the  lower  success  which  He  had  sacrificed  to  reach 
the  higher,  with  a  clear  sense  of  its  value,  though 
without  a  shade  of  regret  at  its  loss,  that  He  said, 
"Yes,  verily,  they  have  their  reward."  It  was  as 
if  the  man  who  had  climbed  a  snowy  peak  stood 
cold  and  tired  in  the  midst  of  all  the  glory  on  the 
very  top,  and  looked  down  into  the  valley  and 
thought  how  warm  and  comfortable  were  the  peas- 
ants by  their  firesides,  and  was  never  so  thankful  as 
just  then  that  he  had  not  been  content  to  tarry  by 
the  fireside,  but  had  struggled  through  every  diffi- 
culty to  the  top. 

How  the  very  thought  of  Jesus  gives  us  the  true 
spirit  in  which  everything  that  duty  calls  us  to  sur- 
render ought  to  be  given  up !  It  is  not  good  for  any 
man  to  give  up  any  success  for  the  sake  of  a  higher 
success,  and  yet  to  go  about  grudging  that  success 
which  he  has  surrendered  to  the  men  who  are  still 
satisfied  with  it.  You  give  up  riches  in  order  to  be 
honest  and  do  good;  thenceforth  the  joy  of  doing 
good  ought  to  be  so  great  to  you  that  no  shadow  of 
envy  should  sweep  over  your  face  as  the  carriages  of 


THE   DANGER  OF   SUCCESS  29I 

the  rich  men  spatter  you  upon  the  street.  You 
choose  the  happiness  of  sobriety;  thenceforth  it  is 
not  worthy  of  you  to  feel  vexed  at  the  temporary 
exhilaration  which  the  carousing  drunkards  get  out 
of  their  dissipation.  You  deliberately  make  your 
religion  a  serious  and  thoughtful  thing;  you  deter- 
mine not  to  be  satisfied  with  the  mere  surface  of  it ; 
you  open  its  deep,  puzzling  questions  and  you  let  in 
upon  your  soul  many  a  puzzling  and  bewildering 
doubt: — it  may  be  you  are  doing  well,  but  at  any 
rate  do  not  complain  of  the  price  you  pay  for  the 
more  intelligent  faith  that  you  are  seeking.  Do 
not  complain  that  you  have  not  the  smooth  and 
careless  life  of  the  traditional,  undoubting  believer 
who  never  asks  a  question  and  so  has  none  to  an- 
swer. It  is  a  beautiful  satisfaction  in  the  highest 
success  which  can  look  the  brilliancy  of  the  lower 
successes  in  the  face,  and  say,  without  a  shade  of 
grudge  or  bitterness,  "Yes,  they  have  their  reward," 
— say  it  without  conceited  superiority  and  without 
feeble  envy. 

This  seems  to  me  important.  I  think  I  see  so 
many  Christians,  men  who  have  chosen  Christ,  who 
are  not  deeply,  thoroughly  satisfied  with  the  Christ 
whom  they  have  chosen.  They  have  really  chosen 
Him.  They  know  there  is  a  happiness  in  Him  that 
wickedness  cannot  give,  but  this  happiness  lies  so 
deep !  They  know  that  it  is  there,  but  they  have 
not  uncovered  it  yet — not  all  of  it.  They  see  some 
fragments  of  it,  and  they  know  that  the  rest  is  there. 
But  here  lies  the  happiness  of  wickedness — all  plain 
and  open.     It  sparkles  in  the  sunshine.     Its  laughter 


292  THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS 

rings  out  on  the  air.  I  think  that  there  are  a 
great  many  good  people  who  wish  that  wicked  peo- 
ple did  not  seem  so  happy.  It  puzzles  them.  They 
know  that  they  are  happier,  but  somehow  their  hap- 
piness is  not  so  palpable.  It  lies  far  off.  It  lies 
deep  down.  The  eating  and  drinking  and  merri- 
ment bewilder  and  amaze  the  patient  toiler  after 
righteousness,  who  has  given  up  everything  else  that 
he  may  win  Christ.  He  is  not  able  all  at  once  to 
measure  their  success  and  see  its  value,  and  say  un- 
grudgingly and  pityingly  :  "Yes,  that  is  the  joy  that 
belongs  to  that  kind  of  life — the  joy  that  I  put  be- 
hind me  once  for  all  when  I  chose  Christ.  They 
have  their  reward.  Let  me  press  forward,  and  every 
day  a  little  more  and  more  have  mine." 

What  shall  such  a  half-discontented  Christian  do? 
He  does  not  dream  of  turning  back  and  giving  up 
his  Master.  He  is  only  bewildered.  All  he  must 
do  is  to  stand  firm.  In  ever  new  obedience  let  him 
give  his  Master  ever  new  opportunity  to  show  him 
the  deeper  and  deeper  richness  of  His  love.  As  he 
goes  on,  as  he  learns  more  of  Christ,  as  he  sees  more 
of  what  it  is  to  serve  Him,  he  will  leave  all  these 
half-regrets  behind  him.  It  will  no  more  trouble 
him  that  lower  ambitions  find  their  lower  rewards, 
than  it  seems  an  injustice  to  the  strong  man,  toiling 
in  the  delight  of  health  and  self-dependence  for  his 
daily  bread,  that  his  little  dog  frisks  by  his  side,  or 
sleeps  in  the  sunshine  and  does  no  work.  It  is  the 
satisfaction  of  the  soul  in  Christ  that  makes  the  in- 
justices of  this  world  seem  all  right  and  clear.  We 
shall  have  it  perfectly  when  we  get  to  heaven,  and 


THE   DANGER   OF   SUCCESS  293 

we  might  have  far    more    of   it  than    we  do    have 
now. 

The  danger  of  every  success  except  the  highest! 
Let  us  be  afraid  of  every  prosperity  and  rest  that 
our  souls  find,  except  that  which  they  find  in  right- 
eousness and  Christ.  And  when  they  come  there, 
and  are  found  in  Him,  then  let  them  be  satisfied; 
for  all  things  are  theirs  when  once  they  are  wholly 
Christ's. 


XVII. 
THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN. 

"  But  he  that  is  spiritual  judgeth  all  things,  yet  he  himself  is 
judged  of  no  man." — I   Corinthians  ii,   15. 

St.  Paul  is  always  aware  of  two  kinds  of  men: 
one  of  them  he  calls  the  natural  man  and  the  other 
the  spiritual  man.  He  sees  them  living  together  in 
every  group,  in  every  family,  in  every  church ;  and 
the  general  aspect  of  the  world  becomes  to  him  most 
interesting  because  these  two  kinds  of  men  are 
always  mingled  in  it. 

Indeed,  the  mingling  of  the  natural  and  spiritual 
men  in  the  world  seems  quite  as  universal  and  fun- 
damental a  fact  as  the  mingling  of  the  higher  and 
lower  elements  in  nature.  The  two  in  some  degree 
correspond  and  illustrate  each  other.  In  nature 
there  is  a  constant  penetration  of  the  grosser  and 
coarser  by  the  subtler  and  finer  parts.  The  grosser 
portion  presents  itself  immediately  to  our  sight ;  the 
subtler  part  eludes  us,  and  only  gradually  do  we 
find  out  that  in  it  the  real  depth  and  richness  of 
power  lies.  The  black,  dead  clod  is  found  to  be  all 
teeming  with  the  powers  of  growth.  The  heavy 
cloud  is  packed  with  electricity.  Heat  lies  latent 
everywhere,  and  the  atoms  of  the  most  solid  things 

294 


THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN  295 

are  in  perpetual  change.  Everywhere  behind  the 
surfaces  of  living  things  lurks  the  great  mystery  oi 
life. 

Perhaps  the  most  delightful  feeling  which  the 
great  discoveries  of  modern  times  have  brought  with 
them  is  that  which  comes  with  this  ever-increasing 
knowledge  of  how  a  higher  spirit  works  in  every- 
thing. Dead  matter  is  not  dead,  because  it  is  capa- 
ble of  such  a  marvellously  intimate  reception  of  life. 
There  is  a  natural  and  there  is  a  spiritual;  and  the 
natural  is  fed  and  fired  by  the  spiritual  always. 
Each  owes  the  other  a  debt.  The  natural  would  be 
heavy  and  base  without  the  spiritual  to  inspire  it. 
The  spiritual  would  be  weak  and  wasted  without  the 
natural  for  it  to  manifest  itself  through.  The  two 
together  make  complete  nature. 

It  is  the  same  thing  in  the  great  world  of  man. 
The  natural  and  spiritual  are  there.  The  grosser 
part  (do  we  not  know  it?)  is  in  the  men  whose  lives 
and  thoughts  are  occupied  with  material  affairs.  The 
men  who  deal  with  the  outsides  of  things,  the  men 
who  carry  on  business,  the  men  who  administer  the 
details  of  government,  the  men  who  manage  social 
life,  the  men  who  study  the  material  world  and 
write  the  chronicles  of  history, — such  men  as  these 
are  what  St.  Paul  means  when  he  talks  about  the 
natural  man.  They  are  not  wicked.  God  forbid ! 
They  are  to  the  whole  world  of  human  nature  what 
the  black  earth  and  the  brown  rocks  are  to  the  whole 
substance  of  the  globe.  But,  just  as  through  the 
rocks  and  earth  run  subtle  forces  which  redeem 
them,  so  in  among  the  masses  of  the  natural  men 


296  THE    SPIRITUAL   MAN 

are  scattered  men  of  fire,  men  of  imagination,  men 
of  unselfish  charity,  men  of  enthusiasm,  men  of  re- 
ligion, men  who  know  and  love  the  purposes  and 
spiritual  ends  of  business  and  government  and  so- 
ciety and  science.  These  men  are  what  Jesus  told  his 
disciples  that  they  were :  "The  light  of  the  world  "  ; 
"The  salt  of  the  earth."  Think  what  a  dreary  place 
the  world  would  be  without  them.  Think  how  flat 
history  would  lie  if  there  were  not  always  these 
buoyant  and  aspiring  elements  in  it,  lifting  it,  mak- 
ing manifest  its  principles,  showing  how  it  belongs 
to  God.  Think  what  your  own  little  circle  would 
be  if  there  were  not  among  its  natural  men  some 
spiritual  manhood.  It  may  be  a  child,  it  may  be  a 
strong  woman,  it  may  be  a  brave,  unpractical,  pro- 
testing man,  it  may  be  a  quiet  dreamer;  whoever  it 
is,  it  is  a  being  with  a  poet's  soul,  for  this  is  the 
poets's  ofifice  always — to  live  in  and  to  make  power- 
fully manifest  the  heart  of  things,  their  inner  prin- 
ciples and  diviner  purposes. 

If  in  these  words  I  have  made  clear  the  difference 
between  the  natural  and  spiritual  man,  then  our 
next  step  must  be  to  see  how  they  both  co-exist  in 
every  full  human  creature.  Just  as  the  entire  earth 
comprises  both  the  earthy  clod  and  the  living  princi- 
ple which  pervades  it,  so  every  true  man  has  both 
the  natural  and  spiritual  manhood  in  himself.  What 
I  was  saying  just  now  may  have  sounded  like  invidi- 
ous discrimination;  I  may  have  seemed  to  be  declar- 
ing some  doctrine  of  a  spiritual  aristocracy,  a  lofty 
and  superior  caste,  made  out  of  finer  clay  than  the 
ordinary   men  about  them.     Such   doctrines  have 


THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN  297 

been  preached.  Such  claims  have  been  made.  But 
always  they  have  proved  how  wrong  and  false  they 
were  by  the  way  in  which  the  self-styled  aristocracy 
grew  foolish  and  lost  its  insight;  while  out  of  the 
mass  of  men  whom  it  dared  to  call  base  and  sordid 
came  by  and  by  some  prophet's  voice,  full  of  spirit- 
ual meaning  and  revelation.  The  real  connective  of 
such  thoughts  lies  in  the  deep  but  simple  truth  that 
every  full  man  carries  in  himself  both  the  natural 
and  spiritual  manhood.  We  all  have  our  coarser  and 
our  finer  parts.  There  can  be  no  mischief  in  the 
claim  that  the  little  kingdom  of  every  man's  life 
should  be  an  aristocracy,  and  that  the  best  part  of 
us  and  not  the  worst  part  of  us  should  rule. 

And  if  in  every  man,  so  in  every  action  :  there  are 
both  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  elements  when  it 
is  perfectly  performed.  Not  merely  in  the  highest 
as  we  call  them,  not  merely  in  worshipping  and 
teaching  and  healing, — not  merely  in  the  singing  of 
poems  and  the  building  of  cities,  but  also  in  the 
making  of  bargains,  and  the  travelling  of  journeys, 
and  the  clasping  of  hands,  and  the  playing  of  games 
— if  each  of  these  is  done  as  completely  as  it  may  be 
done — there  are  a  natural  action  and  a  spiritual  action 
present  together.  The  natural  action  is  the  formal 
deed  ;  the  spiritual  action  is  the  motive  out  of  which 
it  springs  and  the  affection  which  is  its  soul. 

How  life  starts  into  new  vitality  when  the  spirit- 
ual act  completes  the  natural  action!  Often,  as 
St.  Paul  wrote  to  the  Corinthians,  that  is  not 
first  which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural, 
and    afterward    that  which    is    spiritual.      Material 


298  THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN 

development  goes  far  in  advance  of  education,  of 
philanthropy,  or  of  religion.  It  builds  a  splendid 
structure  which  the  higher  activities  of  man  are  after- 
ward to  occupy  and  to  inspire.  Is  not  this  really  the 
condition  of  the  world  to-day?  The  eager  enterprise 
which  has  possessed  the  earth  for  all  these  centuries 
has  created  this  noble,  this  wonderful  civilization. 
Commerce,  war,  government,  art,  learning,  social 
refinement,  and  luxury — they  have  all  contributed, 
and  here  it  stands.  How  wonderful  it  is,  with  its 
great  columns  driven  deep  in  the  unchanging  rock, 
with  its  flashing  pinnacles  reaching  to  the  sky,  with 
the  exquisiteness  of  beauty  filling  all  its  courts! 
What  is  it  that  it  needs?  What  is  it  that  our  civili- 
zation needs?  for  surely  it  needs  something.  Surely 
it  almost  begins  to  weary  of  its  own  splendor  and 
completeness,  as  if,  without  something  else  which 
they  have  not  they  were  incomplete  and  unsatisfy- 
ing, almost  ugly  and  tawdry  things.  What  is  it 
that  our  civilization  needs  to-day?  Is  it  not  a  spirit- 
ual man?  Is  it  not  a  worthy  occupant  of  this  world- 
wide palace,  a  man  who  shall  value  and  seek  after 
character  above  everything,  who  shall  honor  and 
rank  men  by  the  standards  of  character  and  by  no 
other? 

Think  what  our  civilization  would  be  with  such  a 
manhood  occupying  it.  Think  what  our  business 
streets  would  be  if  they  were  all  alive,  as  this  or  that 
office  in  them  is  now  alive,  with  the  enthusiasm  of 
charity, — our  railroads  laden  with  men  and  women 
bound  on  benevolent  and  lofty  errands,  our  tele- 
graphs flashing  finer  and  more  sacred  messages,  our 


THE   SPIRITUAL    MAN  299 

systems  of  government  purged  of  selfishness,  our 
beautiful  houses  filled  with  beautiful  lives!  "A 
dream  !  a  dream !  "  we  say ;  but,  if  it  could  be  more 
than  a  dream,  is  it  not  the  thing  we  want,  is  it  not 
the  thing  which  we  must  have  before  the  world  with 
its  vast  civilization  can  really  be  a  sight  to  satisfy 
the  eye  of  God  or  of  a  truly  godly  man? 

May  we  not  say  again  that  the  same  is  true  of  the 
condition  of  every  man  which  is  true  of  the  condi- 
tion of  the  world?  You  and  I  also  have  our  natural 
side  in  advance  of  our  spiritual  side.  What  we  need 
is  that  our  natural  part  should  be  overtaken  and  oc- 
cupied and  inspired  by  a  completer  spiritual  life. 
When  that  shall  come,  all  our  faculties,  all  our  dex- 
terities, all  our  leanings,  will  be  filled  with  and  used 
by  the  most  sacred  purposes.  Our  powers  will  be 
radiant  with  unselfishness.  The  powers  themselves 
will  be  more  perfect  under  the  power  of  such  occu- 
pation,— we  shall  see  farther  and  run  faster  and 
learn  more  richly;  but  the  great  difference  will  be 
that  the  powers,  great  or  small,  will  all  be  obedient 
to  the  spiritual  purposes  within  them,  and  transpar- 
ent with  their  light.  Humility,  purity,  devoutness, 
simplicity,  unselfishness, — these  will  be  the  charac- 
teristic qualities  of  the  powerful  man.  Are  they  the 
characteristic  qualities  of  the  powerful  man  to-day? 
Are  not  rather  their  very  opposites? 

I  wish  that  I  could  make  you  feel  that  I  am  think- 
ing not  of  a  few  choice  men  for  whom  these  lofty 
spiritual  things  are  possible;  I  am  thinking  of  all 
men, — absolutely  and  literally  of  all  men.  It  is  as 
true    of   the    lounger  at  the  street  corner,    of   the 


300  THE   SPIRITUAL    MAN 

wretched  tippler  in  the  grog-shop,  of  the  fashionable 
idler  in  society,  as  it  is  of  the  earnest  reformer  or  the 
high-souled  saint,  that  there  is  in  him  somewhere  a 
true  spiritual  man  which,  if  it  could  awaken,  must 
occupy  and  rule  his  life. 

What  can  awaken  it?  We  must  not  go  on  longer 
thinking  about  spirituality,  talking  about  it  as  we 
have  been  talking,  as  if  it  were  a  subtle  something, 
a  sort  of  substance  or  element  or  quality,  like  heat 
or  electricity,  which  exists  in  a  greater  or  less  degree 
in  connection  with  other  elements  or  qualities  in  hu- 
man nature.  Spirituality  is  God.  To  be  spiritual 
is  to  be  in  communion,  in  communication,  with  God, 
who  is  the  Source  and  Father  of  all  spirits.  When 
we  say  that  every  man  has  in  him  a  true  spiritual 
element,  what  we  really  mean  is  that  every  man  is  a 
child  of  God.  The  awakening  of  the  spiritual  ele- 
ment in  any  man  is  just  his  coming  to  know,  and  act- 
ing on  the  knowledge,  that  he  is  the  child  of  God. 
And  who  shall  teach  him  that? 

Ah,  there  we  come  home  immediately  to  Christ. 
He  is  the  Revelation.  Therefore,  it  is  through  Him 
that  God  enters  into  the  soul.  And  how  through 
Him?  Under  the  most  simple  and  universal  of  all 
laws:  it  is  through  obedience  to  Him.  This  law 
runs  everywhere.  To  get  the  good  out  of  any  being 
you  must  obey  that  being;  you  must  do  his  will. 
If  you  obey  Christ,  then,  He  will  reveal  God  to  you. 
The  spiritual  side  of  your  life  will  awaken,  and  you 
will  be  the  spiritual  man. 

Is  that  a  theory  or  is  it  a  fact?  It  is  a  fact,  my 
friends!     Plenty  of   men  I  have  known  who  have 


THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN  3OI 

studied  Christ  and  yet  remained  unspiritual.  They 
have  turned  His  words  this  way  and  that ;  they  have 
dissected  the  history  of  His  religion  ;  they  have  been 
wise  theologians  sometimes;  but  it  has  all  been  as  if 
they  studied  physics  or  astronomy.  But  never  has 
a  man  tried  to  obey  Christ  and  not  been  lifted  into 
spirituality.  It  cannot  be  otherwise.  You  cannot 
step  abroad  into  the  sunlight  and  yet  breathe  the 
damp  air  of  the  prison  or  the  mine.  When  Christ 
is  always  bidding  those  who  would  obey  Him  to  love 
God,  to  love  their  fellow-men,  to  live  for  eternity, 
it  is  impossible  for  any  man  to  obey  Him  and  yet  be 
earthly,  selfish,  and  short-sighted. 

It  would  make  one  impatient,  if  it  did  not  make 
one  sad,  to  see  how  unreasonable  men  can  be  about 
this  thing.  One  of  you  young  men  sees  a  comrade 
whom  he  honestly  admires.  That  comrade  lives  a 
higher  life  than  his.  Where  he  is  coarse  that  other 
man  is  fine;  where  he  is  weak  that  other  man  is 
strong.  You  would  expect — what?  Why,  certainly, 
that,  honoring  that  other  man's  life,  he  would  begin 
to  live  that  life  himself.  Instead  of  that  you  see 
him  going  on  in  his  own  life  unchanged.  He  lives 
basely  and  he  praises  goodness  both  at  once.  And 
when  you  ask  him  for  some  sort  of  explanation,  he 
declares:  "Oh,  this  man  has  a  religious  nature!  I 
have  not."  A  religious  nature  !  It  is  as  if  the  jewel 
lying  dark  in  the  shadow  looked  out  upon  its  brother 
jewel  blazing  in  the  sun,  and  said:  "Oh,  he  has  a 
brilliant  nature.  He  is  made  to  blaze  and  burn." 
Go  forth,  O  darkened  jewel;  go  forth  into  the  sun- 
light.    Give  the  sun  a  chance  to  find  the  power  of 


302  THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN 

brilliancy  which  is  in  you.  Do  not  dare  to  say  you 
cannot  shine  until  first  you  have  put  yourself  where 
shining  is  a  possibility !  And  so  one  wants  to  say  to 
the  young  man  who  thinks  he  was  not  made  to  be 
religious :  ' '  Try  to  do  what  Jesus  Christ  wants  you  to 
do ;  try  to  do  His  will  and  see  what  happens. ' '  Very 
slowly  it  may  be,  breaking  out  with  great  difficulty 
through  the  crust  that  lies  above  it,  still  the  spiritual 
sense  must  stir,  the  spiritual  man  must  come  out  to 
the  light  and  know  himself.  That  is  the  new  birth 
which  Jesus  promised,  whose  unexpected  richness 
has  taken  by  surprise  so  many  souls. 

You  know  how  Christ  is  always  saying  to  people 
in  the  Gospels,  "Follow  me!"  What  does  He 
mean?  It  is  not  that  He  wants  a  mighty  company 
for  the  glory  to  Himself  that  it  would  bring;  it  is 
simply  that  He  sees  that  if  men  follow  Him,  then 
He  can  give  them  God.  He  knows  a  power  of  re- 
ceiving God  which  He  longs  to  bring  forth  in  them. 
So  He  calls  to  men  one  after  another  through  the 
Gospels,  "Follow  me." 

And  so  He  calls  to  us.  It  is  the  sum  of  His  re- 
ligion. If  we  can  follow  Him,  we  shall  grow  spirit- 
ual. Then  how  strong  and  safe  we  are!  Age  and 
trouble  and  death  cannot  touch  us  any  more  than 
the  spear  can  wound  the  air.  He  who  lives  in  the 
spirit  never  grows  old.  The  outward  man  perishes, 
but  the  inward  man  has  a  perpetual  youth  ;  and  sor- 
row only  touches  the  spiritual  life  with  a  more  mel- 
low happiness,  and  death  only  opens  wide  the  door 
through  which  it  passes  into  perfect  union  with  God. 

But  it  is  time  to  pass  on  from  this  attempt  to  de- 


THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN  303 

scribe  what  is  the  spiritual  man,  and  see  what  is 
meant  by  St.  Paul's  statement  of  the  functions  which 
belong  to  him.  "He  that  is  spiritual  judgeth  all 
things,  yet  he  himself  is  judged  of  no  man."  Judg- 
ment and  independence — those  are  the  rights  of 
spiritual  manhood. 

Think  first  of  judgment.  The  impulse  to  form 
judgments  is  almost  irresistible,  and  yet  Jesus  says, 
"Judge  not,  and  ye  shall  not  be  judged,"  accom- 
panying His  injunction  with  almost  a  threat.  And 
we  ourselves  are  always  hesitating  between  our  duty 
of  judging  and  our  other  hardly  less  imperative  duty 
of  not  judging.  We  ought  to  discriminate  between 
our  fellow-men,  and  yet  who  are  we  that  we  should 
pronounce  upon  our  brethren?  May  not  the  solution 
of  the  seeming  contradiction  lie  in  St.  Paul's  words? 
It  is  not  that  we  must  not  judge,  but  we  must  judge 
with  the  right  faculty;  the  right  part  of  us  must 
judge.  Here  is  some  man  who  stands  before  the 
world, — what  shall  I  think  of  him?  But  before  that 
comes  the  other  question  :  "  Wit/i  what  shall  I  think 
of  him?  What  faculty  shall  I  bring  to  bear  upon 
him?  Shall  I  judge  him  merely  with  my  eyes  and 
my  aesthetic  sense,  and  see  whether  he  is  beautiful? 
Shall  I  judge  him  with  my  social  instinct,  and  see 
whether  he  is  pleasant  company?  Shall  I  judge 
him  with  my  commercial  skill,  and  see  whether  he 
is  growing  rich?  Shall  I  judge  him  by  my  sensibility 
to  other  men's  judgments,  and  test  whether  he  is 
popular?  Shall  I  test  him  by  my  knowledge,  and 
see  whether  he  is  learned?  All  of  these  are  judg- 
ments adoui  the  man.     If  I  take  them  for  judgments 


304  THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN 

of  the  man,  deciding  what  he  really  is  (as  men  are 
always  taking  them),  I  am  all  wrong.  Nothing  but 
the  part  of  me  which  is  spiritual  can  judge  that, — 
can  judge  him.  That  part  of  me  fixes  its  eye  upon 
character,  discerns  motives.  That  is  the  only  true 
judge. 

Certainly,  it  is  the  only  judge  that  any  action 
which  is  worth  the  doing,  any  action  which  has  lof- 
tiness or  meaning  in  it,  has  much  thought  of  or  re- 
gard for.  You  do  some  little  trivial  thing,  some  one 
of  the  small  actions  of  society,  and  you  are  anxious 
to  know  what  the  lower  and  smaller  parts  of  your 
brethren  will  think  about  it.  Will  it  please  or  offend 
their  taste  ?  Will  it  help  or  hurt  their  liking  for 
you?  But  when  you  do  some  moral  act,  some  act 
which  has  a  true  character  in  it  and  is  really  j^/^, 
these  little  questions  fade  away.  If  men  praise  your 
action  for  its  beauty,  you  resent  it !  If  men  say  it 
will  make  you  rich  or  honored,  you  turn  aside  from 
them  and  will  not  listen.  Only  when  some  man  who 
evidently  values  goodness  for  its  goodness  calmly 
says:  "The  deed  is  good.  Whether  it  brings  wealth 
or  poverty,  whether  it  brings  repute  or  scorn,  the 
deed  is  good,"  then  you  are  satisfied.  Here  is  a 
judge  who  has  a  right  to  judge  men,  a  judge  whom 
no  man  can  resent. 

It  is  none  the  less  true  if  the  judgment  is  a  con- 
demnation,— if  the  man  who  is  spiritual  says,  "The 
deed  is  bad,"  and  not,  "The  deed  is  good."  Have 
you  never  seen  a  group  of  boys  submitting  to  the 
judgment  of  one  comrade  who,  quietly  living  in  the 
midst  of  them,  was  purer,  braver,  and  loftier  in  his 


THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN  305 

standards  than  the  rest  of  them?  They  may  have 
wished  he  was  away, — very  often  people  do  not  like 
the  judges  whom  they  most  respect.  They  may 
have  resented  something  which  seemed  arrogant 
about  his  goodness,  but  it  was  his  arrogance  and  not 
his  goodness  that  they  resented.  And  all  the  time 
he  judged  them.  He  unmasked  them  to  themselves, 
and  with  a  wonderful  meekness  they  acknowledged 
his  judgment,  and  owned  themselves  for  what  they 
really  were  before  the  standards  which  his  life  made 
clear. 

And  many  a  group  of  men  is  just  the  same.  "Do 
ye  not  know  that  the  saints  shall  judge  the  world?  " 
wrote  Paul  to  the  Corinthians  and  the  saints, — by 
which  is  meant  just  exactly  this:  the  men  who  are 
spiritual,  the  men  who  believe  in  things  unseen,  the 
men  who  care  for  character,  do  judge  the  world  to- 
day. Let  a  bad  man  stand  up  in  the  community, 
and  however  he  is  praised  and  imitated  and  pro- 
moted by  all  sorts  of  men,  he  is  aware  and  all  the 
community  is  aware  that  he  is  being  judged  by  a 
quiet,  patient,  earnest  body  of  men,  who,  going  their 
way  through  the  familiar  tasks  of  life,  are  all  the 
while  filling  the  air  with  loftier  standards.  The  bad 
man  may  not  see  them,  but  he  knows  that  they  are 
there.  His  very  bravado  and  bluster  often  mean 
how  perfectly  he  is  aware  of  them.  He  knows  how 
helpless  his  ordinary  acts  are  in  their  presence.  And, 
wrap  the  adulation  of  his  own  friends  and  syco- 
phants about  him  as  closely  as  he  will,  he  never  can 
shut  out  this  judgment  of  the  spiritual  man. 

And  here  comes  in  again  the  truth  of  which  I  have 


306  THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN 

already  spoken,  that  every  man  has  the  power  of  the 
spiritual  manhood  in  himself,  as  well  as  close  around 
him.  The  felt  judgment  of  the  men  of  higher  stand- 
ards wakens  the  higher  standard  in  the  man's  own 
heart.  Oh,  self-reproach  is  far  more  common  than 
we  think!  Many  a  man  whom,  in  our  easy  confi- 
dence that  we  know  each  other,  we  call  reckless  or 
hardened,  is  really  being  judged  all  the  while  by  his 
own  spiritual  self,  is  standing  and  trembling  before 
the  judgment-seat  of  his  own  better  nature. 

Put  these  two  things  together,  and  have  you  not 
got  the  Judgment  Day?  Already  through  the  thick 
cloud  of  daily  incidents  we  can  see  the  Great  White 
Throne.  Already  in  the  remonstrances  of  a  man's 
own  conscience,  stirred  to  life  by  the  protesting  wit- 
ness of  the  goodness  in  whose  presence  he  lives, 
there  is  heard  the  thunder  of  the  eternal  verdict. 

And  then  go  higher  still.  Instead  of  the  weak 
spirituality  of  the  best  men  the  world  can  show,  let 
us  see  God,  the  Father  of  all  spiritual  life,  God  the 
Holy  Spirit;  and  instead  of  the  feeble  appeal  which 
the  best  man's  goodness  can  make  to  his  brother's 
conscience,  let  us  hear  the  arraignment  of  the  child 
by  the  Father,  let  us  think  of  the  terrible  awakening 
of  the  child's  reproachful  better  nature  when  he 
stands  in  the  full  presence  of  his  Father's  grieved 
and  wounded  righteousness  and  love, — think  all  that, 
and  have  you  not  the  Judgment  Day?  No  man  can 
tell  us  its  geography, — where  in  the  universe  that 
mysterious  valley  of  Jehosaphat  may  be,  that  valley 
of  decision  where  the  "multitudes,  multitudes"  shall 
be  gathered, — but  it  will  be  wherever  God  in  His 


THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN  307 

perfect  spirituality  draws  back  the  veil  and  looks  full 
in  the  face  of  His  assembled  world.  I  believe  there 
shall  be  something  corresponding  to  the  scenic  pic- 
ture which  the  Scriptures  draw,  but  the  essence  of 
it  must  be  in  the  eternal  right  and  power  which 
spirituality  has  to  judge  unspirituality.  The  essence 
of  it  is  already  wherever  the  spiritual  is  judging  the 
unspiritual  in  any  little  judgment-seat  on  earth. 

Sometimes  we  hear  good  men  complaining  that 
goodness  is  so  powerless;  the  effort  to  do  right  and 
to  keep  a  pure  soul  and  to  live  by  highest  standards 
is  dishonored  and  despised,  we  hear.  All  such  com- 
plaints are  utterly  unworthy  of  the  good  man. 
There  is  nothing  more  refreshing  and  magnificent  in 
the  whole  world  than  the  satisfied  good  man,  the 
man  who  lives  to  do  right,  who  is  entirely  above 
such  weak  complaints  and  never  dreams  of  making 
them.  In  the  first  place  he  is  too  busy,  too  per- 
petually occupied  with  the  enthusiastic  struggle  of 
his  life,  to  think  whether  he  is  powerful  or  not.  He 
is  a  being  in  himself,  and  if  he  can  so  bear  this  life 
of  his  that  God  shall  see  it  and  approve  it,  and  be 
able  to  fill  it  with  Himself,  he  must  be  satisfied.  But 
then,  if  he  does  lift  up  his  eyes  and  look  about,  he 
cannot  count  himself  powerless.  Rather  he  is  over- 
whelmed and  oppressed  by  the  power  that  he 
carries.  For  is  he  not  the  judge  of  all  things?  O 
my  dear  friends,  it  must  be  that  a  truly  spiritual 
man  has  nothing  to  complain  of  in  the  world!  It  is 
not  that  he  must  struggle  on  in  misery  and  contempt 
until  he  gets  to  heaven,  and  only  there  be  happy 
and  content,  but  now,  here,  all  that  is  best  in  life  is 


308  THE   SPIRITUAL  MAN 

his.  Let  him  not  degrade  the  high  dignity  of  his 
lot,  nor  make  it  less  tempting  to  other  men  by  talk- 
ing of  its  sacrifices  or  disgraces.  He  that  is  spirit- 
ual is  already  the  king  of  the  world. 

One  other  declaration  the  apostle  makes  about  the 
spiritual  man,  which  we  must  not  entirely  neglect  to 
speak  of.  "He  that  is  spiritual  judgeth  all  things, 
yet  he  himself  is  judged  of  no  man."  The  spiritual 
man,  while  he  stands  judging  by  the  highest  stand- 
ards whether  men  and  things  and  institutions  are 
good  or  bad,  is  all  the  while  himself  based  on  a 
foundation  of  his  own  which  does  not  move  with  the 
perpetual  changes  of  the  things  about  him.  I  feel  a 
truth  in  those  words  the  moment  they  are  spoken. 
Think  of  the  man  whom  I  have  tried  to  picture, 
who  stands  in  the  centre  of  a  group  or  a  community 
and  makes  the  men  and  things  about  him  know 
whether  they  are  good  or  bad.  Where  do  his  stand- 
ards come  from?  Does  he  get  them  out  of  the  com- 
munity which  he  is  afterward  to  judge  by  them? 
That  would  be  very  insignificant.  Not  many  days 
would  his  fellow-men  consent  to  be  judged  by  him, 
if  that  were  so.  Such  judges  there  are,  men  who 
pretend  to  do  nothing  more  than  just  to  reflect  back 
on  their  brethren  the  standards  of  life  which  have 
first  been  caught  from  them.  But  the  true  spiritual 
judge  of  men,  whom  men  acknowledge, — we  immedi- 
ately feel  something  quite  different  concerning  him, 
— he  stands  on  a  footing  of  his  own.  He  tests  the 
currents  of  his  race  or  of  his  time,  because,  while  he 
stands  in  the  midst  of  his  race  or  of  his  time,  he  is 
not  drifting  with  it.     His  foundations  are  his  own; 


THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN  309 

and  while  the  waves  that  pass  by  him  take  their 
bearings  and  measure  their  speed  by  him,  they  never 
dream  of  moving  him  at  their  will.  He  may  move 
with  them,  he  may  even  use  them  in  his  movement, 
as  the  steamship  uses  the  waves  on  which  it  floats, 
but  they  do  not  give  it  its  direction  or  its  speed. 
He  judgeth  all  men;  yet  himself  is  judged  of   no 


man 


Such  men  there  always  are, — alas  for  the  world  if 
they  should  ever  fail !  The  greatest  of  such  men 
was  Jesus.  "The  Father  hath  committed  all  judg- 
ment unto  the  Son,"  He  said.  Wherever  men 
touched  His  life  they  were  judged  instantly.  It 
was  as  if  an  object  of  indistinguishable  color  floated 
out  into  the  sunlight,  and  at  once  knew  itself  and 
showed  to  all  who  looked  on  what  its  color  was. 
John,  Peter,  Nicodemus,  Herod,  Judas,  Andrew, 
the  nameless  centurion,  the  nameless  young  noble- 
man,— how  we  see  instantly  what  they  are  when  they 
touch  Jesus!  He  judges  them  all,  and  yet  what  one 
of  them  judges  Him?  He  goes  apart  from  them  all 
when  the  day  is  done,  and  climbs  up  the  hill  and 
lays  His  soul  upon  the  soul  of  His  Father,  and  so, 
alone,  is  judged. 

Oh,  there  is  a  real  consciousness  in  all  of  us  that 
no  man  is  really  strong  unless  this  which  is  true  of 
Jesus  is  also  true  of  him.  In  our  imperfectness  it 
may  be  true  of  part  of  us,  and  not  true  of  the  whole. 
There  may  be  one  side  of  my  being  in  which  I  do 
accept  and  depend  upon  the  judgments  of  my  fel- 
low-men ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  on  another  side, 
I  insist  on  coming  to  absolute  righteousness  and 


3IO  THE   SPIRITUAL   MAN 

absolute  truth  and  being  judged  by  them  alone.  On 
this  second  side  only  am  I  strong.  On  this  second 
side  only  will  my  brethren  really  feel  that  I  am 
strong,  and  make  me  their  judge.  There  only  am  I 
really  spiritual,  and  so  there  only  can  it  be  possible 
for  me  to  judge  all  things. 

What  will  be  the  temper  of  the  man  who  thus 
stands  on  his  own  convictions  and  judges  his  fellow- 
men?  Will  he  be  arrogant  and  intolerant?  Not  if 
he  is  really  spiritual;  for,  as  I  said  before,  all  spirit- 
uality is  God.  He  who  is  really  spiritual  makes  him- 
self but  the  channel  through  which  God  can  declare 
Himself.  The  judgment,  when  it  comes,  is  not  his, 
but  God's.  He  must  be  humble,  for  he  has  laid 
himself  low  that  God  may  flow  over  his  life  into 
these  other  lives.  And  he  must  be  full  of  sympa- 
thy, because  where  any  part  of  God  can  flow,  the 
whole  of  God  will  flow,  and  "God  is  Love."  Hu- 
mility and  sympathy  must  fill  the  strong  judgments 
of  the  man  who  judges  all  things  because  he  is 
spiritual. 

And  so  it  all  comes  to  this, — that  if  you  and  I  can 
really  give  ourselves  to  God  and  be  made  His  men 
in  Jesus  Christ,  then  we  shall  attain  to  that  which 
we  dream  of,  which  we  desire,  but  which  so  often 
seems  very  far  away.  We  shall  be  able  to  under- 
stand and  help  our  fellow-men  without  being  their 
slaves.  In  very  virtue  of  our  freedom,  we  shall  be 
able  to  understand  them,  and  reveal  them  to  them- 
selves, and  help  them.  And  there  is  nothing  better, 
nothing  happier  in  the  world  than  that.  May  we 
be  made  fit  for  it  by  being  made  God's  men  in  Christ ! 


XVIII. 

DELIGHT    IN   THE   LAW   OF   GOD. 

"  I  delight  in  the  law  of  God." — Romans  vii.  23. 

If  we  know  what  a  man  delights  in,  we  know 
what  sort  of  a  man  he  is.  "Where  do  you  find  your 
greatest  pleasure?"  is  certainly  one  of  the  most 
searching  test-questions  by  which  men  may  try  their 
own  or  their  friends'  lives.  Our  circumstances  tie 
us  down  to  the  things  we  have  to  do;  but  when  our 
circumstances  let  us  up  and  we  are  free,  what  do  we 
fly  to  with  delight?  One  to  the  pleasures  of  the 
senses, — the  appetites  and  the  lusts;  another  to 
the  social  joys;  another  to  the  charm  of  books; 
another  to  the  glory  of  nature;  another  into 
the  struggle  for  influence  and  fame.  How  they 
scatter  as  soon  as  they  are  free!  It  is  as  if  you 
opened  the  doors  of  a  great  menagerie,  and  all  the 
beasts  that  had  lived  monotonously  there  together 
felt  their  primal  instincts  once  more,  and  the  lion 
sprang  with  a  glad  roar  toward  the  forest,  and  the 
eagle  swept  upward  toward  the  sun,  and  the  snake 
shot  out  of  sight  into  the  grass  of  the  thicket.  In 
all  the  confusion  that  pervades  this  world  and  per- 
plexes us  about  the  characters  of  the  men  that  we 

311 


312  DELIGHT   IN   THE    LAW    OF   GOD 

know  the  best,  would  there  not  be  a  clearing-off  of 
every  doubt  and  mystery  if  every  man  for  one  ap- 
pointed hour  should  do  the  thing  in  which  he  most 
delighted?  It  would  be  an  hour  of  strange  revela- 
tions, but  when  it  was  over  it  would  be  like  the 
morning  after  the  Judgment  Day.  We  should  know 
ourselves  and  one  another. 

St.  Paul  gives  us  his  statement  here.  He  tells  us 
what  he  delights  in,  and  it  is  so  remarkable,  it  is  so 
different  from  what  delights  most  men,  that  we  may 
well  give  it  our  study.  It  is  the  story  of  the  new 
life  which  he  was  always  talking  of,  the  beginning 
of  which  was  his  most  precious  memory,  and  to 
grow  in  which  was  his  supreme  desire. 

"I  delight  in  the  Law  of  God,"  he  said.  What 
is  the  Law  of  God?  As  we  live  in  the  world  we  look 
around  us  and  see  a  multitude  of  operations  going 
on.  How  manifold  they  are!  How  confused  and 
intricate  they  seem  to  us  at  first!  The  stars,  the 
plants,  the  waves,  the  men,  the  nations — all  moving 
back  and  forth  on  one  another;  everything  restless, 
nothing  still.  Now,  to  a  low  order  of  intelligence 
there  is  sufficient  pleasure  in  the  mere  confused 
movement  of  this  mass  of  life.  A  low,  dull-minded 
man  is  satisfied  with  the  mere  variety  and  vitality 
of  the  moving  universe,  as  a  child  will  look  out  of  a 
window  for  hours  and  be  amused  enough  with  the 
change  and  liveliness  of  the  scene  before  him,  and 
never  ask  whither  the  procession  that  he  sees  is 
moving.  But  as  a  man  improves,  this  mere  unrea- 
soning sight  is  not  enough.  He  must  look  deeper. 
The  confused  variety,  the  ever-shuffling  movement, 


DELIGHT   IN   THE   LAW   OF   GOD  313 

cease  to  give  him  pleasure,  and  only  tantalize  and 
provoke  him  unless  his  eye  can  fasten  on  some  law 
or  principle  which,  if  it  does  not  tell  him  by  what 
force,  at  least  can  tell  him  by  what  method,  the  per- 
petual movement  is  maintained.  He  must  find  a 
uniformity  in  the  circling  of  the  stars  and  the  grow- 
ing of  the  plants,  and  the  coming  and  going  of  the 
tides;  and  when  he  has  found  it,  when,  through 
the  clash  and  murmur  of  mere  noise,  beats  out 
at  last,  first  indistinctly  and  then  clearer  and  more 
clear,  the  rhythm  of  harmonious  order, — then  he 
has  come  to  a  new  kind  of  pleasure:  he  delights  in 
a  law. 

Much  harder  in  some  respects,  and  yet  much 
easier  in  others,  is  the  effort  to  which  the  man 
is  driven  to  discover  a  law  in  human  action.  The 
simplest  instincts  suggest  it,  and  yet  the  most  acute 
analysis  cannot  wholly  trace  it.  But  in  human  ac- 
tion man  can  least  rest  without  a  law.  His  own 
heart  will  not  let  him  believe  that,  however  it  may 
be  with  the  trees  and  stars,  the  actions  of  mankind 
are  things  of  chance,  capable  of  being  submitted  to 
and  governed  by  no  principle;  and  so  he  does  dis- 
cover various  laws  under  which  men  act,  and  at  last 
down  deep  under  them  all  he  discovers  the  funda- 
mental law  of  conscience,  the  law  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  sees  that,  however  other  influences  have 
come  and  gone,  have  crossed  it  and  recrossed  it  and 
mixed  themselves  up  with  it,  still,  always  recogniza- 
ble, there  has  always  been,  underneath  everything, 
the  principle  of  righteousness — something  which 
proclaimed  that  certain  deeds  were  right  and  must 


314  DELIGHT   IN   THE    LAW   OF   GOD 

be  done,  and  that  certain  other  deeds  were  wrong 
and  men  must  not  do  them. 

Now,  when  a  man  discovers  this,  and  begins  to 
test  the  world  by  it,  he  has  entered  into  a  new  ca- 
pacity for  pleasure.  Deeds  which  before  gave  him 
delight  only  because  they  stirred  his  blood  and 
touched  his  taste,  now  fall  with  quiet  and  profound 
satisfaction  upon  his  sense  of  righteousness.  "It  is 
right,"  he  says  of  some  event  of  which  the  world  is 
talking;  and  above  any  half-sensuous  joy  that  comes 
from  its  picturesqueness  or  its  bravery,  that  right- 
eousness of  it,  that  harmony  with  the  sense  of  right- 
ness  that  is  lying  in  his  soul,  gives  him  a  profound 
and  peaceful  satisfaction.  He  delights  in  the  law 
of  righteousness. 

We  pause  here  for  a  moment  just  to  say  how  piti- 
able the  man's  life  has  been  who  has  never  known 
what  this  satisfaction  is.  As  indescribable  as  the 
color  of  a  rose  to  a  blind  man  or  the  sound  of  a 
trumpet  to  the  deaf,  is  the  joy  of  righteousness  to  a 
man  with  no  moral  sense.  "The  thing  is  right," — to 
say  that  unqualifiedly  of  anything,  to  feel  the  deed 
you  see  fit  itself  into  the  conception  of  goodness  that 
is  in  your  soul,  so  that  the  two  claim  one  another 
like  the  embrace  of  mother  and  daughter,  like  the 
mutual  recognition  of  seed  and  ground, — that  is  a 
joy,  pure,  deep,  and  indescribable  to  any  one  who  has 
not  felt  it.  I  hardly  dare  believe  that  there  is  any 
man  who  tiever  felt  it;  but  just  as  to  some  men  the 
sight  of  the  stars  is  a  rare  luxury  while  other  men 
study  them  night  after  night,  just  as  some  of  us  go 
once  in  our  life  and  look  at  the  great  pictures  while 


DELIGHT    IN   THE    LAW   OF   GOD  315 

other  men  almost  live  in  their  sacred  presence,  so 
this  delight  in  the  law  of  righteousness,  which  is  a 
sensation  once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime  to  many,  is  a 
continual  passion  to  some  men.  They  could  not  live 
without  it. 

But  how  cold  it  is — how  abstract — this  simple 
adoration  of  a  law!  By-and-by  the  man's  soul  must 
have  something  else !  Who  made  this  law  ?  Whence 
comes  this  beautiful,  imperious  standard  of  right- 
eousness? And  then  (we  need  not  try  now  to  tell 
how),  by  various  revelations  comes  out  into  sight  as 
the  background  and  source  of  everything,  the  dear, 
vast  personality  of  God.  How  solemn  and  sublime 
it  is!  ''He  made  us," — man  has  never  done  more 
than  floated  on  the  surface  of  that  thought.  "He 
made  us!  And  all  that  we  are,  all  that  is  in  us, 
came  out  from  Him.  And  if  there  is  a  principle  of 
righteousness  in  us  that  makes  us  test  and  judge 
things  morally  and  say  that  they  are  right  or  wrong, 
He  put  it  there.  And  if  He  put  it  there,  it  was 
Himself  He  put  there.  This  law  of  right  and  wrong 
is  but  the  projection  of  His  nature,  the  inspiration 
of  His  being.  When  I  say  that  a  thing  is  right,  I 
mean  that  it  meets  and  finds  and  harmonizes  with 
Him.  I,  the  child,  have  this  of  my  Father  in  me— 
His  standard  and  pattern  of  righteousness.  And 
when  my  brother  here  by  my  side  resists  a  temptation, 
when  he  flings  back  a  bribe,  when  he  drags  a  wrecked 
life  to  the  shore  and  saves  it,  I  know  at  once  that 
between  that  deed  and  the  purity  and  love  of  God 
there  is  a  bright,  true  harmony ;  it  is  an  act  that  God 
would  smile  on, — nay,  it  is  an  act  that  God  might  do. 


3l6  DELIGHT    IN   THE    LAW   OF   GOD 

And  now,  this  God,  who  is  He?  My  Maker!  My 
Father!  My  everything!  This  beautiful  world.  He 
made  it!  This  deliciousness  of  life,  He  gave  it!  I 
put  out  my  hands  and  they  come  back  to  me  loaded 
with  His  ever-falling  mercies!  I  walk  my  daily 
path  and  my  feet  are  set  upon  His  thick-sown  bene- 
fits. Ever  since  I  was  born  He  has  been  showing 
me  how  He  loves  me,  and  tempting  back  my  love  to 
Him.  And  now,  if  I  find  that  this  law  of  righteous- 
ness is  His  law ;  if,  instead  of  tracing  everywhere  the 
beautiful  persistency  of  an  abstract  principle,  I  see 
everywhere  Him,  my  Friend  and  Father,  working 
on  men's  natures  with  an  influence  which  I  have 
felt  impressing  itself  on  me,  what  then?  There  is 
nothing  cold  or  abstract  any  longer.  Every  triumph 
of  righteousness  is  an  assertion  of  my  Father's  na- 
ture. Every  sign  of  the  law's  working  is  a  signal  of 
His  presence.  It  is  not  "it"  any  longer.  It  is 
"He."  I  delight  not  merely  in  the  law  of  right- 
eousness, but  I  delight  in  the  Law  of  God. 

I  do  not  know  whether  there  is  anything  here  that 
seems  to  you  strange  or  obscure.  It  has  seemed 
strange  to  some  men.  But  surely  it  is  very  simple. 
If  I  live  in  and  love  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  then 
every  desire  of  mine  that  righteousness  should  be 
done  is  warmed  and  fired  with  all  the  intensity  of 
my  filial  love  to  Him.  It  is  just  such  a  feeling  as 
might  be  in  the  mind  of  a  loving  son  of  a  great 
prince  or  governor.  He  would  see  the  absolute 
righteousness  of  the  commandrrients  that  his  father 
gave,  and  for  their  own  sakes  he  would  desire  that 
they  should  be  obeyed.     Having  his  father's  nature, 


\ 


DELIGHT    IN    THE    LAW    OF   GOD  317 

he  would  see  just  as  his  father  saw  when  he  made 
the  law^that  it  was  good  and  just  in  itself;  but  this 
would  not  conflict  with  a  profound  enthusiasm  for  it 
because  it  was  his  father's.  All  his  filial  love  would 
fire  his  devotion  to  it.  If  he  went  out  to  fight  in 
order  to  sustain  it,  there  would  be  no  separation  of 
the  motives  that  moved  his  arm  as  he  struck  one 
single  blow  for  the  abstract  right  and  for  his  father's 
honor.  It  is  his  perception  of  the  law's  justice,  made 
warm  and  tender  with  his  love  for  his  father,  that 
fills  his  heart  as  he  delights  in  his  father's  law. 

Now,  with  all  our  unfilialness,  let  us  lift  up  our 
hearts  and  imagine  ourselves  for  a  moment  the  per- 
fectly filial  children  of  our  Heavenly  Father.  Let 
us  forget  the  sins  of  yesterday,  the  ingratitudes  and 
forgetfulnesses  which  to-day  have  stained  our  love. 
Let  us  imagine  ourselves  all  that  God's  children 
might  be,  and  then  let  there  come  to  us,  as  we  stand 
with  quick,  attentive  ears,  the  story  of  how  all  over 
the  world  there  is  a  Law  of  God  at  work.  It  rustles 
right  by  my  feet  at  first.  Some  child  I  know  is 
tempted  to  steal  or  cheat,  and  does  not  do  it  because 
God  has  forbidden  it.  Some  man,  burning  with 
lust,  is  held  back  from  his  sin  because  he  knows  that 
it  is  wrong.  And  then  more  faintly  I  hear  the  same 
tidings  come  from  a  great  distance.  Some  hero  in 
China  has  laid  his  life  down  in  self-sacrifice.  Some 
good  deed  in  the  Sandwich  Islands  bears  witness 
that  there  are  souls  there  struggling  for  the  right. 
And  then  sounds  come  out  of  the  past.  Some 
martyr  in  the  sixteenth  century  went  to  the  stake 
rather  than  deny  his  Lord.     Some  old-time  Greek 


3l8  DELIGHT   IN   THE    LAW   OF   GOD 

would  not  betray  his  friend,  and  so  he  gladly  died. 
What  is  the  sum  of  all  these  tales  of  goodness,  these 
testimonies  of  righteousness  from  all  the  ages  and 
from  all  the  world?  Children  of  God,  what  do  they 
bring  to  us?  At  once  a  joy  in  righteousness  and  a 
joy  in  our  Father.  A  delight  in  the  Law  of  God. 
There  is  no  conflict,  no  jealousy.  God  is  the  Law, 
the  Law  is  God.  And  added  to  the  deep,  pure 
sense  of  satisfaction  that  I  spoke  of,  that  rises  cool 
and  sweet  from  the  perfect  fitting  of  the  action  to 
our  sense  of  right,  all  mingled  with  it  and  setting  it 
into  a  glow,  there  is  a  happiness  in  the  new  exhibi- 
tion and  the  extended  sway  of  Him  whose  glory 
and  power  are  our  light  and  life — our  Father,  God. 
In  its  broadest  way  this  is,  I  think,  the  soul's  de- 
lighting in  the  Law  of  God.  It  is  a  noble  life.  This, 
I  think,  is  what  Paul  meant.  But  now  we  must  turn 
for  a  moment  and  remember  that,  while  Paul  meant 
this,  he  meant  this  in  a  more  special  form  than  that 
in  which  I  have  stated  it.  Paul  taught  a  theology ; 
we  must  not  forget  that.  We  dishonor  and  misun- 
derstand him  if  we  make  his  theology,  as  it  has  been 
so  often  made,  so  special  and  narrow  that  it  does  not 
coincide  with  and  explain  the  problems  and  ques- 
tions of  ordinary,  universal  life.  But  while  we  must 
always  shrink  from  turning  him  into  a  mere  local 
Jewish  teacher,  we  must  get  at  his  full  meaning  al- 
ways by  putting  ourselves  as  far  as  possible  into  his 
place  and  time  and  way  of  thinking.  Now,  when 
Paul  speaks  of  the  Law  of  God,  he  is  thinking 
especially  of  the  Law  of  the  Old  Testament,  by 
which  his  people  had  been  trained  for  the  coming  of 


DELIGHT   IN    THE    LAW   OF   GOD  319 

Christ.  He  is  thinking  of  the  Bible  history  of  the 
moral  experiment  of  humanity.  He  is  thinking  of 
the  Bible  as  the  Book  of  this  universal  law  of  which 
we  have  been  speaking.  That  is  the  Law  of  God 
which  he  delights  in.  And  so  we  may  apply  what 
we  have  been  saying  not  merely  to  the  universal  law 
of  God  which  is  written  everywhere  and  made  known 
to  us  in  many  ways,  but  to  that  special  revelation  of 
the  Divine  Will  which  is  given  to  us  in  the  Bible. 
Surely,  if  there  is  in  us  such  a  soul  as  longs  every- 
where to  discover  the  intentions  and  purposes  of 
God  in  this  perplexed  world  where  we  live,  the  very 
idea  of  a  written  Law  of  God — a  Book  which  shall  so 
utter  Him  that  any  man  studying  it  shall  know  what 
He  desires,  and  find  His  commandments  written 
plain  and  clear — must  be  the  most  welcome  blessing 
that  it  can  dream  of.  And  that  is  just  what  the 
Bible  is — a  Law  of  God,  an  utterance  of  a  regulative 
word.  That  is  the  side  on  which  it  approaches  us. 
That  is  the  claim  with  which  it  comes  to  us.  It  is 
not  a  mere  satisfactory  account  of  the  universe,  ap- 
pealing to  our  intelligence ;  it  is  not  a  poem  of 
beautiful  life,  appealing  to  our  imagination;  but  it 
is  a  law  appealing  to  our  conscience,  and  just  in 
proportion  as  men  read  the  Bible  with  their  con- 
sciences does  it  satisfy  them  and  send  them  away 
saying,  "I  delight  in  the  Law  of  God." 

I  am  glad  to  say  this  because  it  seems  to  me  that 
very  often  nowadays  men  and  women  (we  here,  per- 
haps) are  not  getting  the  comfort  and  pleasure  which 
we  ought  to  out  of  our  Bibles,  because  we  do  not  go 
to  them  with  the  right  idea.     We  miss,  it  may  be,  in 


320  DELIGHT   IN   THE   LAW   OF  GOD 

ourselves  that  eagerness  and  joy  with  which  we  know 
that  other  Christians  have  turned  to  the  Bible  con- 
stantly and  lingered  over  its  pages.  We  read  it,  and 
it  interests  us;  but  it  may  well  be  that  there  are 
some  of  the  young  people  whom  I  speak  to,  who 
have  often  reproached  themselves  that  they  could 
not  feel  that  intimate  and  dear  affection  for  the 
Bible,  as  the  friend  of  their  souls,  the  treasure  of 
their  lives,  which  they  have  heard  older  people  tell 
about.  It  is  not  good  that  it  should  be  so.  It  is  a 
sad  loss  to  the  life  not  to  love  the  Bible.  Of  course 
there  may  be  other  reasons,  but  may  not  one  reason 
be  that,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  discussions  and  dis- 
coveries about  the  Bible  in  our  time,  the  primary 
purpose  of  the  Bible  has  been  too  much  dimmed, 
too  often  lost?  The  histories  of  the  Bible  have  been 
analyzed.  Its  poetry  has  been  magnified.  It  has 
come  to  be  treated  in  many  circles  as  a  literary  work, 
and  so  we  do  not  easily  regard  it  as  our  fathers  did, 
as  a  Book  purely  for  regulation.  It  has  been  so 
much  a  Book  for  criticism  that  we  do  not  easily 
make  it  the  Book  of  Life.  What  many  of  us  want, 
I  am  sure,  is  to  get  back  to  the  very  simplest  thought 
of  the  Bible.  It  has  all  one  plain,  direct  intent. 
There  is  nothing  told  us  in  it  to  satisfy  our  curiosity 
or  to  gratify  our  taste ;  nothing  that  has  not  the  one 
great  purpose — to  regulate  our  lives.  God  is  shown 
to  us  in  it,  not  in  His  absoluteness  as  the  Lord  of 
Heaven,  but  in  His  relations  to  us,  as  our  Maker, 
Master,  Father.  It  is  a  Law  of  God,  and  will  open 
its  heart  and  beauty  only  to  those  who  come  to  it  as 
a  law,  with  hearts  asking  for  commandment  and 


DELIGHT    IN   THE    LAW   OF   GOD  32 1 

promising  obedience.  Certainly  if  we  could  go  to 
our  Bible  thus,  if  to-night  when  we  open  its  pages 
it  could  be  with  hearts  feeling  their  failures  in  gov- 
erning themselves  and  longing  to  have  God  govern 
them,  anxiously  asking  Him,  "  Lord,  what  wilt  thou 
have  me  to  do?  "  the  Bible  would  speak  to  us  as  it 
does  not  speak  now  ;  and,  entering  into  its  new  mas- 
tery, finding  it  really  the  lord  and  ruler  of  our  life, 
we  should  learn  to  love  it  as  we  learned  to  depend 
upon  it,  and  it  would  no  longer  seem  strange  or  ex- 
travagant for  us  to  say :  "I  love  my  Bible  "  ;  "I  de- 
light in  the  Law  of  God." 

I  think,  then,  that,  both  with  reference  to  the  uni- 
versal law  of  righteousness  and  also  with  reference 
to  the  special  revelation  of  the  Bible,  we  have  seen 
that  a  delight  in  the  Law  of  God  means  simply  this 
—  a  love  for  God  and  a  profound  and  peaceful  satis- 
faction that  One  whom  we  love  and  trust  entirely  is 
ruling  us  and  everything  about  us.  It  is  as  simple 
as  that.  Look  at  the  life  of  Jesus — was  there  ever 
a  Being  who  so  delighted  in  the  Law  of  God  as  He 
did?  It  was  His  meat  and  drink  to  do  His  Father's 
Will;  and  that  calm  face,  unmoved  among  the  tu- 
mult and  the  roar,  kept  its  perfect  calmness  because 
in,  under,  through  it  all.  He  knew  that  God  was  ful- 
filling His  purposes,  manifesting  Himself.  That 
satisfied  Him  entirely.  "Ye  could  do  nothing 
against  me  unless  it  were  given  you  from  above," 
He  said  to  His  persecutors,  and  so  He  let  His  per- 
secutors do  their  worst.  "Even  so,  Father,  for  so  it 
seemed  good  in  thy  sight" — that  was  the  end  of 
everything  for  Him.      He  knew  what  God's    Law 


322  DELIGHT   IN   THE    LAW   OF   GOD 

was.  A  portion  of  the  Deity  Himself,  He  had  felt 
it  control  the  throbbing  pulses  of  the  universe,  and 
had  seen  the  bright,  endless  ranks  of  Cherubim  and 
Seraphim  bow  before  it,  and  uncounted  hosts  of 
angels  fly  to  do  its  bidding.  And  now,  a  man, 
weary  and  dusty  and  bewildered,  it  seemed  glorious 
and  sweet  that  His  life  as  He  toiled  back  and 
forth  between  Jerusalem  and  Galilee,  up  the  steep 
hill  at  Nazareth,  and  at  last  out  of  the  gate  to 
Calvary,  was  all  held  and  sustained  and  regulated 
by  that  eternal,  supreme  Law.  It  rested  Him  and 
strengthened  Him.  He  delighted  in  the  Law  of 
God. 

Sometimes  it  seems  1o  me  as  if  we,  with  our  im- 
perfect obedience  to  and  realization  of  God,  getting 
so  little  of  what  He  wants  to  give  us  every  day, 
wrenching  ourselves  by  our  wilfulness  out  of  His 
care, — as  if  we,  living  thus  and  looking  from  our  dis- 
ordered lives  at  the  calm,  obedient  life  of  Jesus, 
were  like  a  wrecked  and  broken  ship  lying  dismasted 
on  the  ocean,  feeling  the  winds  that  it  could  not 
obey,  tossed  by  the  waves  on  which  it  could  not 
steer, — as  if  that  ship  should  see  bearing  down  upon 
it  a  ship  like  itself,  only  perfect, — every  sail  set, 
every  breeze  caught,  ruling  the  waves  that  carried 
it,  borne  on  in  all  its  stateliness  by  the  very  ocean 
that  seemed  ready  to  open  its  black  mouth  and  swal- 
low the  poor,  helpless  wreck  that  floated  like  a  for- 
eign and  unwelcome  thing  upon  its  bosom.  So 
Jesus,  perfectly  obedient  to  His  Father,  delights  in 
the  same  Law  of  which  we  are  so  apt  to  be  afraid. 
We  love  to  look  at  His  life.    And  most  of  all  the 


DELIGHT    IN   THE    LAW    OF   GOD  323 

stately  ship  is  beautiful  to  us  if  she  bears  down  to 
us  that  she  may  help  us.  The  perfect  obedience 
of  Jesus,  beautiful  in  itself,  is  a  thousand  fold  more 
beautiful  if  it  gives  itself  to  the  rescue  of  us  from 
our  disobedience. 

If  we  understand,  then,  what  it  is  to  delight  in  the 
Law  of  God,  I  think  we  can  see  easily  enough  what 
must  be  the  blessed  consequences  of  such  a  noble 
condition  in  the  life  of  the  happy  man  who  has  at- 
tained it.  It  will  sweep  out  of  his  life  the  two  great 
hindrances  that  most  impede  and  vex  the  life  of 
every  man  —  selfishness  and  restlessness.  O  my 
dear  people,  look  into  your  lives  and  tell  me,  what 
is  it  that  keeps  you  unhappy  and  ineffective?  Is  it 
not  these — these  which  came  in  across  the  pure  hap- 
piness of  Eden  and  ever  since  have  held  men  in  their 
power.  I  open  the  old  palace  of  the  Caesars  and  I 
open  the  squalid  hut  of  some  Fiji  barbarian,  and 
in  both  there  is  just  what  makes  miserable  your 
house  and  heart,  the  old,  undying  tempters  and  tor- 
mentors of  the  human  soul — selfishness  and  restless- 
ness. What  is  there  that  can  cast  them  out  and 
bring  in  their  bright  opposites,  devotion  and  peace? 
What  but  just  this,  a  delight  in  the  Law  of  God; 
such  a  new  state  of  being  that  the  soul  shall  be 
happy  in  knowing  that  God  reigns,  and  in  obediently 
helping  His  government  to  its  complete  results.  Is 
there  any  selfishness  left  there?  What  room  is  there 
for  it  when  the  one  wish  is  that  God's  Will  may  be 
done?  Is  there  any  restlessness  left  there?  Where 
can  there  be  any  flaw  for  it  in  the  entire  peace  of  a 
soul  trusted  away  from  itself  into  the  hands  of  a 


324  DELIGHT   IN   THE   LAW    OF   GOD 

Lord  of  perfect  wisdom  and  entire  love?  O  my 
dear  people,  all  the  while  that  you  are  selfish  and 
restless  there  is  a  region  of  unselfishness  and  peace 
right  by  your  side  in  which  you  might  be  walking. 
If  you  would  only  make  one  effort,  leap  one  fence, 
you  would  be  in  it,  and  your  life  would  be  changed. 
That  leap  is  taken,  that  change  comes,  when  you  be- 
gin to  delight  in  the  Law  of  God. 

Am  I  painting  what  is  only  a  mockery?  Am  I 
telling  of  something  which  is  very  bright  and  tempt- 
ing, but  which  is  utterly  out  of  your  power  or  mine 
to  attain?  God  forbid!  It  is  not  an  easy,  matter- 
of-course  thing,  I  know.  I  have  talked,  perhaps,  as 
if  it  were  very  easy  for  St.  Paul.  It  is  time  for  me 
to  read  you  his  other  verse  and  show  you  how  hard 
he  found  it,  what  a  perpetual  struggle  it  was  to  him. 
He  says  there  were  two  men  in  him,  one  of  which 
was  capable  of  this  supreme  delight,  while  the  other 
lived  in  lusts  and  low  desires.  "I  delight  in  the  Law 
of  God  after  the  inner  man,"  he  says.  "But  I  see 
another  law  in  my  members  warring  against  the  law 
of  my  mind,  and  bringing  me  into  captivity  to  the 
law  of  sin,  which  is  in  my  members.  Oh,  wretched 
man  that  I  am  !  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body 
of  this  death!  "  He  saw  the  beauty  and  peace  of 
living  in  the  delight  of  the  Law  of  God.  Part  of 
the  time  he  lived  up  there  in  that  high  employment ; 
but  then  his  lower  passions  were  always  dragging 
him  down.  Just  your  life  and  mine  exactly;  and 
certainly  it  may  help  us  when  we  see  that  the  great 
Paul — that  Saint  of  God — had  not  escaped  from  this 
harassing  and  fluctuating  life  in  which  we  are  living. 


DELIGHT    IN   THE    LAW   OF   GOD  325 

He  has  escaped  it  now.  In  God's  very  presence, 
there  in  heaven  where  he  stands  through  his  Re- 
deemer, he  has  left  selfishness  and  restlessness  be- 
hind forever  and  has  entered  into  entire  devotion 
and  perfect  peace.  But  when  he  wrote  these  words 
he  was  just  where  we  are — trying  to  delight  in  God 
and  yet  dragged  back  always  by  pride  and  selfish- 
ness to  his  own  restless  self. 

If  Paul  could  speak  to  us  to-day  he  would  tell  us 
how  he  finally  escaped,  by  what  divine  and  loving 
ways  God  led  him  out  of  the  power  of  his  lusts  and 
into  the  glory  of  that  pure  delight  in  God  in  which 
he  is  now  laboring.  "Be  patient,"  he  would  say, — 
"be  patient,  my  brethren,  and  never  be  discouraged. 
Your  God  is  able  to  deliver  you,  and  will  deliver  you 
at  last." 

Shall  we  venture  to  put  words  into  the  mouth  of 
the  glorified  Apostle  and  think  what  he  would  say 
to  us  if  he  should  speak  to  his  brethren  who  are 
wandering  and  struggling  in  the  darkness  which 
he  must  so  well  remember?  We  run  no  risk,  for  we 
know  well  enough  what  he  would  say  to  us. 

First  of  all  would  he  not  say :  "Never  forget  that 
you  have  the  power,  the  capacity  of  delighting  in 
the  Law  of  God.  Let  no  tendency  to  grovel  and 
to  love  low  things  blot  out  of  your  soul  the  certainty 
that  there  is  in  you  a  capacity  for  a  higher  happi- 
ness. Do  not  think  it  impossible,  even  down  where 
you  are  in  the  depths  of  degraded  passion,  do  not 
think  it  impossible  that  you  should  sit  in  heavenly 
places  with  Christ  Jesus  and  delight  in  the  Law  of 
God.     Cling  to  the  possibility  of  the  highest  life, 


326  DELIGHT   IN   THE   LAW   OF   GOD 

however  low  you  sink."  Would  he  not  urge  us  with 
some  such  words  as  these? 

And  then  again  he  would  say:  "Obey  the  Law 
of  God  even  if  you  have  no  love  for  it,  and  so  you 
will  learn  to  love  it.  Even  if  obedience  be  only  a 
task,  even  if  righteousness  be  a  burden  and  a  cross 
to  you,  even  if  you  have  to  force  yourself  to  your 
duty — still,  do  it.  The  Law  of  God  is  delightful; 
force  yourself  up  to  it  and  you  shall  know  its  de- 
light. Do  your  duty,  even  if  duty  be  wearisome  and 
hard,  for  then  you  are  in  the  place  where  it  can  be- 
come joyous  and  easy  to  you,"  That  he  would  say 
with  all  the  emphasis  of  his  own  brave  duty-doing 
life. 

But  then  (and  we  can  almost  hear  his  voice  rise 
and  see  his  face  glow  as  he  advances),  then  he  would 
go  on  to  what  he  would  most  love  to  say.  "I 
escaped,"  he  would  declare,  "purely  and  solely  by 
the  help  of  Christ.  He  took  me,  and,  drawing  me 
into  His  love,  made  me  delight  in  God's  Law  by 
my  delight  in  Him.  He  took  me  and  showed  me 
the  Beauty  of  Holiness  by  offering  me  Himself  as 
the  Master  to  serve,  the  Law  to  obey.  Look  at  Him  ! 
— He  is  the  Law  of  God.  To  be  conformed  to  Him 
is  to  obey  God  perfectly.  Can  you  love  Him?  Can 
you  not  love  Him?  He  lived  for  us,  for  me  and 
you,"  the  old  Apostle  would  say,  putting  himself 
right  by  our  side.  "He  lived  for  us.  He  died  for 
us.  He  lives  for  us  forever, — can  you  not,  must  you 
not  love  Him?  Must  not  your  soul  delight  in  Him?" 
And  then,  turning  back  to  the  life  and  work  of 
heaven,  we  should  hear  him  say  as  his  voice  ceased 


DELIGHT   IN   THE   LAW    OF   GOD  327 

from  our  ears:  "To  delight  in  Him,  that  is  to  de- 
h'ght  in  the  Law  of  God.  Christ  is  the  end  of  the 
Law  for  righteousness." 

We  can  at  least  do  this  which  he  tells  us, — we  can 
believe  that  there  is  in  us  the  power  of  loving  God's 
Law.  We  can  obey  God's  Law  even  before  we  love 
it,  doing  our  duty  however  hard  it  be.  And  we  can 
pray  to  Him  who  came  to  show  God  to  all  men, 
that  He  will  show  God  to  us,  and  make  us  delight 
in  His  Law. 

Oh,  let  us  claim  our  souls  for  their  highest  joys, 
for  it  is  sad  and  terrible  that  men  and  women  who 
have  the  power  of  loving  and  obeying  God  should 
be  loving  and  obeying  the  tyrants  of  this  world — 
houses  and  fortunes  and  the  poor  standards  of 
Society.  May  God  set  us  free  and  lift  us  up  to 
Himself! 


XIX. 

THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT. 

"  And  the  ark  of  the  covenant  of  the  Lord  went  before  them."— 
Numbers  x.  33. 

Whenever  a  Jew  read  these  words  they  must 
have  presented  to  him  a  very  vivid  picture  in  his 
people's  history.  They  present  the  same  picture 
only  less  vividly  to  us.  The  host  of  Israel  is  leav- 
ing Sinai  on  its  long  journey  across  the  desert. 
Their  caravan  in  its  vast  numbers  has  trailed  its  slow 
length  out  of  the  camp  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain 
where  it  has  tarried  so  long  and  is  stretched  out  to- 
ward the  Promised  Land.  It  goes  slowly  crawling, 
like  a  vast  serpent,  along  the  dreary  stretches  of 
sand.  And  there  are  other  caravans  in  sight.  Just 
as  to-day,  the  Arab  from  the  South,  the  Egyptian 
from  the  West,  the  mixed  nomadic  tribes  who  live 
on  the  bright  spots  of  the  desert  itself,  are  moving 
hither  and  thither,  breaking  the  monotonous  hori- 
zon and  giving  some  variety  and  interest  to  the  des- 
olate sameness  of  the  scene.  But  among  all  the 
caravans  this  one  of  his  forefathers  is  marked  and 
separated  to  the  Hebrew's  eye.  Not  merely  by  its 
size,  not  merely  because  it  is  a  moving  nation,  not 

328 


THE   ARK   OF   THE    COVENANT  329 

merely  because  it  is  his  forefathers,  but  mainly  be- 
cause of  something  which  is  always  carried  at  the 
head  of  the  procession,  which  gives  a  tone  and  char- 
acter to  it  and  all  its  movements.  It  is  a  certain  box 
or  chest;  not  very  large,  some  five  feet  long  and 
three  feet  high  and  broad,  covered  with  cloths  and 
hidden  from  their  sight.  This  is  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant,  No  other  caravan  in  all  the  desert  has 
anything  like  this  mysterious  and  sacred  chest. 
Wherever  it  moves  the  eyes  of  all  the  host  are  on  it. 
Whenever  they  encamp  the  tents  of  the  host  are 
pitched  around  it,  as  if  that  they  might  protect  it, 
and  it  might  bless  them.  Whenever  it  started  upon 
the  march  the  voice  of  Moses  is  heard,  crying  aloud  : 
"Rise  up,  Lord,  and  let  thine  enemies  be  scattered ; 
and  let  them  that  hate  thee  flee  before  thee." 
Whenever  it  rests  and  stands  still  the  same  voice 
cries:  "Return,  O  Lord,  unto  the  many  thousands 
of  Israel."  This  is  what  marks  the  moving  army  of 
the  Israelites,  that  wherever  they  go,  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant  of  the  Lord  goes  before  them. 

At  first  it  looks  like  superstition  and  some  foolish 
dream  of  magic.  But  it  is  not  that  at  all.  The 
following  of  the  ark  has  a  reasonable  meaning. 
Really,  that  golden  chest,  wrapped  in  its  curtains, 
represents  a  truth,  and  that  truth  it  really  is  which 
is  moving  on  before  them  and  on  which  their  eyes 
are  always  fastened  for  direction  and  for  inspiration. 
The  truth  is  that  centre-truth  of  Judaism,  that  they 
are  God's  chosen  people.  That  truth,  not  any  mere 
box  of  wood  and  gold,  it  is  which  is  leading  them 
and  keeping  up  their  courage.      It  is  inside  the  ark, 


33©  THE    ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT 

this  truth  of  their  national  belonging  to  God,  in  the 
shape  of  three  sacred  and  venerable  relics, — two 
stone  tables,  on  which  God  had  written  their  funda- 
mental law,  a  pot  of  manna  which  God  had  sent 
from  heaven  to  satisfy  their  hunger,  and  a  rod  with 
buds  upon  it  which  had  been  the  symbol  of  God's 
life  and  inspiration  imparted  to  their  national  High 
Priest,  Aaron.  God's  law,  God's  care,  God's  com- 
munication,— these  three  facts  grouped  together  in 
the  ark  represented  the  one  truth, — that  God  was 
their  God,  that  He  had  taken  them  for  His,  that 
He  and  they  belonged  to  one  another.  It  was  that 
truth  which  they  set  at  the  head  of  their  army; 
around  that  truth  the  silver  trumpets  blew,  and  be- 
hind it  the  whole  multitude  of  the  people  marched. 
They  followed  after  it  all  the  day-time,  and  they 
clustered  close  around  it  all  the  night.  No  wonder 
that  the  ark  in  which  the  symbols  of  that  truth  were 
enshrined  came  to  seem  almost  as  if  it  were  God 
present  in  their  midst.  When  it  was  lifted  up,  it 
seemed  as  if  it  were  indeed  God  rising  to  go  against 
His  enemies  and  theirs.  When  it  was  set  down  upon 
the  ground  it  was  almost  as  if  God  Himself  planted 
Himself  among  the  many  thousands  of  Israel. 

This  covenant  ark  was  to  the  Jews  the  promise 
of  two  things  which  they  needed  every  day  and 
hour  —  safety  and  direction.  It  was  not  safe  for 
them  where  they  were,  and  they  did  not  know 
which  way  to  go.  There  were  the  Midianites  and 
Moabites  about  them,  and  there  were  the  pathless 
sands  before  them  ;  what  could  they  do  without  a 
protector  and  a  guide?     And  He  who  helped  them 


THE   ARK   OF   THE    COVENANT  33I 

must  be  both  of  these  to  them.  It  was  of  no  use 
to  them  that  He  should  protect  them  if  they  were 
still  left  to  wander  hopelessly.  It  was  of  no  use  to 
them  that  He  should  guide  them  if  it  were  only  into 
dangers  from  which  He  could  not  keep  them  safe. 
Both  wisdom  and  power  they  must  have  to  look  to. 
As  David  sang  long  afterwards,  their  Lord  God 
must  be  a  sun  and  a  shield.  And  both  of  these 
they  knew  were  in  that  symbolic  ark  which  they  fol- 
lowed as  they  marched,  and  clustered  around  while 
they  rested.  Wisdom  and  power  met  in  the  stone 
tables  and  the  miraculous  manna  and  in  the  budded 
rod. 

And  now,  how  far  off  all  this  seems!  How  long 
ago,  how  far  away  this  caravan  of  Jews  trampling 
along  through  the  weary  sand  between  Arabia  and 
Syria,  with  their  strange  ark  borne  along  before 
them  three  thousand  years  ago!  How  far  away 
from  us  here  on  this  Sunday  morning!  It  startles 
and  delights  our  sense  of  picturesqueness  to  lift  our 
eyes  all  at  once  from  this  modern  life  and  let  them 
rest  away  off  across  the  ocean  and  across  the  cen- 
turies upon  this  foreign  picture.  But  have  we 
nothing  more  to  do  with  it  than  that?  If  we  have 
really  got  at  what  the  picture  means,  and  if  you 
have  really  minds  and  hearts  to  look  not  at  the 
forms  alone  but  at  the  hearts  of  things,  I  hope  to 
make  you  see  in  that  procession  following  the  ark 
the  picture  of  a  possible  life  of  yours — the  picture 
of  a  life  that,  reconciled,  covenanted,  given  away 
and  dedicated  to  God,  follows  the  truth  of  its  dedi- 
cation, makes  that  the  leading  and  inspiring  truth 


332  THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT 

of  everything,  and  gets  safety  and  guidance  out  of 
it  every  day  it  lives.  The  Christian  life  so  often 
seems  to  men  a  weight  and  a  restraint.  It  seems 
so  often  as  if  it  put  a  man's  life  into  danger  and  be- 
vi^ilderment,  instead  of  into  safety  and  clearness,  to 
give  it  to  God,  that  I  wish  we  could  see  it  all  differ- 
ently; I  wish  that  we  could  really  see,  among  all 
the  purposeless,  defenceless  nations  of  the  desert, 
wandering  without  a  plan,  unsafe,  unguided,  this 
one  procession  of  the  Israelites  moving  safely  and 
surely  day  after  day  because  they  alone  had  God, 
because  they  followed  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant. 

The  soul  led  and  protected  by  its  covenant  with 
God — that,  then,  is  our  subject.  But  first  of  all,  I 
think  we  often  hesitate  at  that  word  "covenant." 
It  has  an  ancient,  Jewish  sound.  It  was  a  word 
under  which  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  conceived 
their  relationship  to  God.  But  now  it  often  seems 
as  if  the  word  had  a  hard  kind  of  contract  sound 
about  it. 

It  appears  to  picture  God  as  standing  and  weigh- 
ing out  His  love  and  benefaction,  grain  by  grain, 
against  the  scrupulously  exacted  equivalent  which 
man  was  called  upon  to  render.  It  seems  to  miss 
the  whole  idea  of  freedom  and  spontaneousness 
which  we  rather  love  to  make  prominent  in  the 
thought  of  God  blessing  man.  But  I  am  sure  that 
there  is  danger  of  a  great  deal  of  our  modern  talk 
doing  injustice  to  the  grand,  straightforward  religion 
of  the  old  Jews,  partly  by  attributing  to  them  ways 
of  thinking  which  they  never  had,  and  partly  by 
losing  sight  of  the  real  eternal  value  of  a  great  many 


THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT  333 

of  their  broad  and  simple  truths  which  modern  sub- 
tlety has  refined  away. 

For  instance,  the  Jews  no  doubt  had  deeply  en- 
grained in  their  religion  the  notion  of  the  necessary 
mutualness  of  every  relationship  between  God  and 
man.  They  believed,  that  is,  that  it  was  impossible 
for  God  to  do  anything  for  man,  without  man's 
meeting  God  with  a  responsive  activity  of  his  own, 
God  could  not  bless  a  people  unless  the  people  were 
obedient.  God  could  not  speak  to  a  soul  unless  the 
soul  would  listen.  God  could  not  iead  a  man 
unless  the  man  would  follow.  The  necessities  were 
not  artificial  but  essential.  Now,  that  is  a  great 
idea.  It  is  an  idea  which  it  is  dangerous,  nay,  ab- 
solutely fatal,  for  religion  to  lose.  We  look  around, 
and  is  there  one  thoughtful  man  among  us  who  is 
not  often  in  fear  for  the  religion  which  we  see  the 
most  of  now-a-days,  lest  it  should  grow  weak  and 
perish  from  its  losing  just  this  idea  of  the  necessary 
mutualness  of  the  relation  of  God  and  man? — men 
expecting  to  be  blessed  without  being  obedient, 
expecting  to  be  enlightened  without  humble  de- 
voutness,  expecting  to  be  led  to  truth  and  righteous- 
ness when  they  make  no  attempt  to  follow.  These 
are  the  indications  of  how  that  old  Jewish  idea  may 
be  lost,  and  of  what  is  the  peril  of  losing  it.  Now, 
this  is  just  the  idea  that  the  Jew  pictured  to  himself 
under  the  form  of  a  covenant.  He  was  to  do  some- 
thing and  God  was  to  do  something.  "Draw  near 
to  me,  and  I  will  draw  nigh  to  you" ;  "Do  this,  and 
you  shall  live";  "If  you  will  be  my  people,  then  I 
will  be  your  God."     The  mutualness  was  essential 


334  THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT 

and  necessary,  not  merely  arbitrary.  It  was  pictured 
in  sacrifices  minutely  described  and  punctiliously 
demanded  ;  but  at  the  bottom  it  was  this  great,  true, 
everlasting  idea, — that  for  God  and  man  to  come 
together  both  must  do  something,  that  God  cannot 
meet  live  men  as  the  sunlight  strikes  a  dead  rock, 
merely  giving  itself  to  what  is  helpless,  but  as  the 
sunlight  strikes  a  live  tree  which  must  open  to  re- 
ceive its  bounty.  There  is  no  covenant  with  the 
rock.     There  is  a  covenant  with  the  tree. 

No  doubt  the  Jews  dropped  away  from  the  lofty 
simplicity  and  truth  of  this  idea.  With  perhaps  the 
same  tendency  to  barter  which  has  characterized  the 
Hebrew  in  all  times,  they  did  degrade  this  great 
mutualness  of  life  into  a  close,  hard  bargain  in 
which,  by  doing  certain  formal  things,  they  might 
bind  God  down  to  certain  mercies  of  which  they 
could  not  otherwise  be  sure.  The  prophets  found 
this  state  of  things,  and  in  strong  opposition  to  it 
they  proclaimed  the  perfect  freeness  of  God's  mercy : 
"Ho!  every  one  that  thirsteth!  He  that  hath  no 
money,  come  ye,  buy  and  eat,  without  money  and 
without  price." 

Jesus  found  the  same  state  of  things, — every 
mercy  of  God  ticketed  in  the  price-list  of  Rabbinical 
scrupulousness, — and  He,  too,  exalted  the  freedom 
of  God.  "Whosoever  will,  let  him  come."  "If 
any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me,  and  drink." 
No  doubt  the  high  idea  of  covenant  did  run  down 
into  a  low  idea  of  contract;  but  in  itself  it  is  a  high 
idea,  the  high  idea  of  the  necessary  mutualness  in 
the  life  and  relationship  of  God  and  man. 


THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT  335 

As  a  Christian  man,  I  believe  fully  that  all  the 
modern  discussion  of  the  being  and  work  of  God, 
more  or  less  connected  with  natural  science,  which 
often  sounds  like  atheism,  is  really  tending,  under 
God,  to  a  better  knowledge,  on  our  part,  of  what  He 
is  and  how  He  relates  Himself  to  us.  And  some- 
times it  seems  to  me  as  if,  with  its  strong  assertion 
of  the  human  side,  it  were  just  this  covenant  idea 
which  the  modern  discussion  of  God  is  destined  to 
restore  and  to  confirm, — as  if  without  weakening  the 
absoluteness  of  God  it  were  bringing  forth  the  way 
in  which  He  has  bound  Himself  to  man  and  made 
it  seem  impossible  for  Him  to  send  His  best  mercies 
until  men  have  risen  to  their  part  in  the  mutual  re- 
lationship. The  modern  physical  philosopher,  sol- 
emnly insisting  that  the  price  of  health  is  cleanliness 
and  decency,  often  reminds  us  strangely  of  the  He- 
brew Prophet  denouncing  pestilence  upon  the  people 
who  refused  to  hear  and  obey  the  word  of  God.  At 
least  this  covenant  truth  of  mutualness  is  in  them 
both. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  this  truth  of  the  covenant  be- 
cause it  appears  in  its  perfection  in  the  relation 
which  the  Christian  holds  to  God.  I  hope  that 
after  what  we  have  said  there  is  no  trouble  for  our 
minds  in  carrying  over  the  word  "covenant  "  to  the 
richer  relations  between  God  and  man  which  Chris- 
tianity makes  known,  and  hearing  Jesus  called  "the 
Mediator  of  the  new  covenant."  The  Christian  has 
made  a  covenant  with  God!  It  was  a  phrase  more 
common  once  than  now.  But  still  it  is  a  great  and 
precious  truth.     What  does  it  mean?     Not,  surely. 


336  THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT 

that  the  Christian  has  bargained  his  obedience 
against  a  certain  forgiveness  and  a  certain  help,  not 
that  he  has  undergone  a  certain  humiliation  and 
contrition  in  virtue  of  which  God  has  bound  Him- 
self that  he  shall  not  be  punished  but  shall  go  to 
heaven:  nothing  of  that  sort.  But  this, — that  he 
has  entered  into  a  mutualness  of  life  with  God  ;  that 
he  has  met  God's  willingness  to  help  him  with  a 
willingness  to  be  helped;  that  he  saw  God  wanted 
to  forgive  him,  but  could  not  because  he  was  im- 
penitent, and  so  he  repented  and  received  forgive- 
ness ;  that  he  saw  God  was  willing  to  pour  light  and 
strength  into  him,  but  could  not  because  he  was 
proud,  and  so  he  humbled  himself  and  the  light 
streamed  in;  that  he  took  God  and  God  took  him; 
that  he  could  not  have  taken  God  without  God's 
taking  him,  and  that  God  could  not  have  taken  him 
without  his  taking  God;  but  that  by  mutual  love 
they  met,  one  bringing  submission  and  the  other 
help,  and  that  those  two  meeting  made  the  soul's 
salvation-time. 

That  is  a  man's  covenant  consciousness.  And 
when  the  man  becomes  aware  that  out  of  that  cove- 
nant is  coming  the  impulse  and  the  safety  of  his  life, 
that  what  is  guarding  him  from  sin  and  throwing 
light  on  duty,  and  keeping  up  his  courage  and  fill- 
ing him  with  hope,  is  the  certainty  that  all  this  has 
taken  place — that  he  has  given  himself  to  God, — 
when  a  man  knows  that,  the  power  by  which  he  lives 
all  issues  from  the  certainty  of  the  position  in  which 
he  stands  with  the  great  Lord  and  Master  of  his 
life.     He  is  the  man — walking  on  strongly  behind 


THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT  337 

and  in  the  light  of  this  sublime  transaction  between 
his  soul  and  God — he  is  the  man  who  is  following 
the  Ark  of  the  Covenant, 

Years,  years  ago,  perhaps,  a  young  man  some- 
where, in  some  church,  some  shop,  some  school, 
who  had  before  lived  as  if  on  this  green  earth,  under 
this  blue  sky,  there  were  no  greater  being  than  him- 
self, came  to  know  God.  God  came  to  him!  He 
came  to  God  !  Both  of  these  sentences  tell  the  story 
of  what  happened.  It  was  not  an  unwilling  God 
who  laid  His  hand  upon  the  soul  and  blessed  it. 
It  was  not  an  unwilling  soul  that  laid  itself  upon  the 
bosom  of  the  mercy.  The  soul  and  God  met  in 
the  covenant  of  life.  Well,  years  have  passed  away, 
and  now  the  man  is  old.  How  many  acts  the  man 
has  done,  how  many  thoughts,  how  many  words 
have  crowded  in  since  that  day  of  his  boyhood, 
when  he  and  God  gave  themselves  to  one  another. 
But  ask  him,  and  he  will  tell  you  that  all  his  life 
has  just  been  following  out  the  promise  of  that  day. 
All  that  he  has  done  or  been  of  good  was  wrapped 
up  in  that  perfect  gift  of  himself  to  the  Eternal 
Good.  All  that  he  has  received  of  blessing  really 
descended  on  him  when  the  Lord  became  his  God. 
When  he  has  doubted,  he  has  looked  up  and  seen 
His  promise  shining;  when  he  has  been  tempted 
that  promise  has  sustained  him.  He  is  where  he  is 
to-day  in  character  and  life  because  of  that  meeting 
of  his  life  with  God's,  in  church,  or  shop,  or  school, 
so  many  years  ago.  What  shall  we  say  of  such  a 
life?  //  has  followed  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant.  How 
it  brings  out  the  difference  in   men !     They  have 


338  THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT 

traversed  the  same  desert,  been  parched  with  the 
same  thirst,  drank  of  the  same  springs,  had  the  same 
comforts  or  discomforts;  but  one  has  had  peace  and 
purpose,  and  the  other  only  unrest  and  discontent. 
One  has  walked  in  the  footsteps  of  an  apprehended 
God;  the  other  has  gone  in  the  ways  of  his  own 
will.  One  has  lived  the  Israelites'  life,  and  the  other 
the  Midianites'  life;  and  so  one  comes  to  Canaan, 
and  the  other  is  lost  among  the  sands. 

But  take  one  step  more.  How  is  it  possible  that 
a  conscious  and  remembered  relationship  to  God 
should  constitute  a  rule  of  life.  "I  grant,"  one 
says,  "that  it  is  good  for  you  who  are  God's  child 
to  know  your  Father  and  to  come  to  as  true  an 
understanding  as  you  can  with  Him ;  but  tell  me, 
how  does  that  practically  help  you?  How  does  it 
unravel  for  you  this  snarl  of  life?  How  does  it 
make  you  know  what  )70u  ought  to  do  to-morrow 
morning?  How  does  it  teach  you  how  to  treat  this 
troublesome,  ungrateful  friend?  The  Jews'  Ark  of 
the  Covenant  was  different.  It  was  not  merely  a 
memory  and  an  idea;  it  was  there  in  wood  and  gold. 
They  could  see  it;  when  it  turned  north  they  saw 
it;  when  it  turned  south  they  saw  it.  They  had 
only  to  keep  their  eyes  on  it  and  they  were  safe." 

But  remember  the  experience  to  which  the  Chris- 
tian soul  looks  back;  its  covenant  which  it  remem- 
bers was  not  a  mere  emotional  transaction,  begun 
and  ended  in  itself.  Just  as  in  the  Jews'  covenant, 
something  came  in, — the  tables  and  the  manna  and 
the  rod, — which  were  mediators,  as  it  were,  which 
brought  the  authority  and  merc}'  on  the  one  side  to 


THE    ARK    OF   THE   COVENANT  339 

the  need  and  the  submission  on  the  other,  so  in  the 
Christian's  covenant  there  was  a  mediator,  not  a 
thing  d.x\y  longer,  but  a  Living  Person  who  brought 
the  willingness  of  God  and  the  willingness  of  man 
together.  The  Christian's  whole  remembrance  of 
his  new  covenant  with  God  is  bound  up  in  associa- 
tion with  the  Christ  in  whom  it  was  made.  "He 
brought  God  to  me,  and  me  to  God,  and  we  met  in 
Him,"  the  Christian  says.  "I  never  should  have 
known  how  God  loved  me,  and  I  never  should  have 
known  how  I  needed  God,  if  He  had  not  shown 
me  both."  And  then  when  the  Christian  looks  up 
and  says,  "Where  is  this  covenant  of  mine  to  lead 
me?"  when  he  asks  just  the  question  that  you 
asked — "How  will  it  make  for  me  a  rule  of  life?  " — 
behold  there,  walking  before  him,  a  Human  Life 
which  lightens  up  all  human  living,  goes  He  in 
whom  the  covenant  is  represented — Jesus  Christ,  its 
Mediator.  What  the  golden  and  wooden  chest  was 
to  the  Hebrew,  this  Saviour  in  His  own  flesh  and 
blood  is  to  the  Christian.  He  goes  before  His  peo- 
ple. He  is  the  Ark  of  our  covenant.  To  follow 
the  Christian  Ark  of  the  Covenant  is  to  follow  Him. 
O  my  dear  friends,  I  promise  you  that  I  will  never 
preach  to  you  any  mere  vain  theological  specula- 
tions, that  cannot  touch  your  life;  but  I  must  tell 
you  of  what  so  many  Christians  here  among  you 
know  so  well,  of  how  the  covenant  between  the  soul 
and  God  issues  into  the  service  of  Him  in  whom  the 
covenant  is  made,  and  the  life  of  the  Christian  be- 
comes the  following  of  Christ.  "To  follow  Christ! 
— that  sounds  vague.     Christ  lived  so  long  ago!     If 


340  THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT 

I  had  been  there,  I  could  have  followed  Him.  I 
could  have  kept  close  to  Him  and  imitated  every 
action.  But  now  the  times  have  altered.  Here  in 
our  modern  homes,  now  in  our  youngest  century, 
how  can  I  shape  these  daily  acts  upon  such  different 
daily  acts  of  One  who  lived  so  long  ago,  so  far 
away  ? ' ' 

But  if  you  ever  tried  it,  you  would  cease  to  won- 
der. For  this  is  the  power  of  that  life  of  Jesus, — a 
power  which  you  cannot  know  till  you  do  try  it,  a 
power  which  all  who  have  ever  tried  it  will  bear 
witness  to, — that  they  who  enter  into  living  sym- 
pathy with  Him  by  gratitude  do  truly  see  not 
merely  how  to  do  those  certain  things  He  did,  but 
how  He  would  have  done,  how  He  would  wish  to 
have  His  servants  do,  every  most  different  and 
modern  thing  which  it  may  come  into  their  lots,  so 
different  from  His  lot,  to  attempt.  The  Christian, 
thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  Jesus,  knows  how  his 
Christ,  who  never  bought  or  sold,  would  manage 
his  great  business;  knows  how  his  Christ,  who  had 
no  wife  or  child,  would  rule  a  household;  knows 
how  his  Christ,  who  lived  the  patient  subject  of  a 
despotism,  would  vote  as  the  free  and  responsible 
citizen  of  a  Republic.  He  finds  his  Lord  a  legible 
and  shining  Law  in  every  strangest  place  to  which 
his  duty  calls  him.  And,  doing  everywhere  what 
he  knows  that  there  the  Christ  would  do,  in  and 
through  whom  He  has  been  brought  near  to  God, 
he  is  living  a  larger  service  than  any  Jew  tramping 
through  the  sands  after  his  ark,  or  any  disciple 
following  Jesus  about  the  city  streets.     In  a  higher 


THE   ARK    OF   THE   COVENANT  34T 

and  fuller  way  than  either  of  them,  he  is  following 
the  Ark  of  the  Covenant. 

I  said  of  the  ark  that  went  before  the  Israelite  in 
the  desert  that  it  gave  him  two  things — safety  and 
guidance.  These  same  two  things  come  to  the 
Christian  out  of  his  following  of  Christ.  He  has 
both  security  and  progress.  He  is  at  once  kept 
from  danger  and  led  on  to  ever  greater  things.  And 
it  is  clear  that  both  these  things  must  meet  in  any 
strong  and  happy  life.  Merely  to  be  safe,  to  rest 
outside  of  danger,  but  to  make  no  advance,  to  con- 
quer no  new  ground,  to  grow  to  nothing  greater  day 
by  day — that  is  a  most  depressing  life.  And  merely 
to  advance  when  every  step  is  uncertain,  when  the 
consciousness  of  danger  is  haunting  every  footstep, 
when  you  cannot  tell  whether  you  are  going  right 
or  wrong — that  is  a  most  distressing  life.  And  yet 
almost  all  our  expedients  of  living  seem  to  aim  at 
one  of  these  ends,  not  at  both  of  them;  either  at 
safety  or  at  progress,  not  at  the  two  together.  Con- 
servatism with  all  its  forces  tries  to  make  men  safe, 
radicalism  with  its  forces  tries  to  keep  men  moving, 
till  safety  in  thinking  and  acting  comes  to  sound 
of  deadness  and  torpidity,  and  progress  to  many 
ears  is  full  of  the  ideas  of  reckless  peril  and  destruc- 
tion. It  is  the  privilege  of  the  true  follower  of 
Christ  that  these  two,  so  often  separated,  meet  for 
him. 

See  how  it  is  in  thought.  A  man  whose  whole 
life  is  led  by  the  consciousness  that  his  life  belongs 
not  to  himself  but  to  his  God — led  by  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant — is  armed  most  strongly  against  the  worst 


342  THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT 

dangers  of  thinking  men.  Every  thought  that 
comes  to  him  is  brought  into  that  obedience.  He 
cannot  think  wilfully  merely  to  please  himself.  He 
cannot  think  servilely  merely  to  please  other  people. 
Whim,  pride,  the  love  of  novelty,  the  fear  of  novelty, 
these,  which  you  all  know  are  the  perils  of  thinking 
men,  are  swallowed  up  in  the  conviction  that  he 
must  not  think  anything  lightly  or  unworthily  of 
Him  whom  he  follows.  But  at  the  same  time  the 
limitlessness  of  the  Christ  who  leads  him,  the  cer- 
tainty that  He  has  infinitely  more  of  truth  to  show 
than  He  has  yet  made  known,  makes  His  true  fol- 
lower impatient  after  new  ideas  and  broader  fields  of 
thought.  The  Israelite  host  was  at  once  safer  where 
it  stood,  and  yet  surer  to  move  onward  to  new  camp- 
ing grounds,  than  the  loose  tribes  of  Moabites  and 
Midianites  around  them.  So  the  Christian  thinker 
ought  to  be  at  once  surer  of  what  he  holds  and  more 
eager  to  move  on  to  new  truth  than  the  disciple  of 
any  other  master.  If  he  loses  either  his  safety  or 
his  progress,  if  he  grows  either  a  sceptic  or  a  bigot, 
he  surrenders  his  privilege.  The  intellectual  man, 
following  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant,  learns  the  true 
harmony  of  positive  convictions  with  free  and  enter- 
prising thought. 

And  it  is  with  life  and  conduct  just  as  it  is  with 
thought.  Here,  too,  there  seems  to  be  a  struggle. 
Safety  and  progress  will  not  blend  with  one  another. 
One  man  says:  "Let  me  be  safe.  Let  me  be  sure 
of  doing  nothing  wrong."  And  so  he  shuts  himself 
up  to  a  little  circle  of  conventionally  good  things; 
he  cuts  off  a  multitude  of  innocent  pleasures  which 


THE   ARK   OF   THE    COVENANT  343 

he  chooses  to  consider  doubtful ;  he  never  dreams 
of  enterprising  and  original  goodness;  and  all  his 
life  grows  meagre.  Another  man,  seeing  him, 
grows  afraid  of  the  paralysis  of  virtue,  and  goes 
forth  recklessly  in  the  fields  of  wildest  license.  He 
casts  all  thoughts  of  safety  aside.  What  good 
men  have  most  called  wrong  shall  become  right 
for  him.  He  will  walk  through  the  midst  of  im- 
purity and  yet  be  pure.  He  will  go  to  the  bot- 
tom of  fiendishness  and  bring  up  a  new  kind  of 
saintliness  from  thence.  The  movement,  the  zest 
of  life,  is  everything.  Safety  is  too  low  a  thing  to 
think  of. 

And  then  comes  Christ  and  His  follower;  what 
does  He  do?  He  binds  the  follower's  heart  com- 
pletely to  Himself  by  love.  He  makes  His  life  and 
His  disciple's  really  one.  He  makes  it  His  servant's 
one  desire  to  be  like  Him.  This  great  desire,  ag  a 
triple  wall,  He  builds  about  His  servant's  purity. 
He  makes  him  safe  with  the  protection  of  His  own 
character  and  standards  always  present  there  through 
love.  The  Christian  is  assaulted  by  temptation. 
He  looks  up  and  sees  that  the  sin  to  which  he  is 
tempted  is  a  desertion  of  his  Lord,  is  a  wrong  and 
pain  to  Jesus,  and  he  will  not  do  it.  Is  there  any 
safety  so  complete  as  that?  But  then  it  is  no  safety 
of  mere  laws.  It  is  no  limited  and  bounded  nega- 
tive. It  is  an  infinite  and  boundless  positive.  As 
his  loyalty  to  Christ  restrains  him,  so  also  it  incites 
him.  As  he  will  not  do  anything  in  disobedience 
to  Christ's  nature,  so  he  will  not  be  satisfied  until 
he  has   completely    matched   that   nature  with  his 


344  THE   ARK   OF   THE    COVENANT 

own.  It  stretches  before  him  into  new  realms  of 
growth  and  duties  that  have  seemed  impossible. 
Virtue  is  no  longer  paralysis,  but  inspiration. 

What  is  the  result?  A  fear  of  sin  that  does  not 
bind  the  feet,  but  loosens  them,  and  gives  them 
wings  towards  holiness.  A  longing  for  holiness  that 
is  all  the  more  tenderly  conscious  of  its  danger  of 
temptation.  The  Christian  will  always  surprise  men 
with  this  mixture  of  fear  and  freedom.  He  will  re- 
fuse to  do  things  which  men  see  no  harm  in,  saying: 
"I  dare  not.  It  is  not  safe.  I  cannot  expose  my 
soul."  And  then  he  will  boldly  go  forth  into  some 
new  field  of  adventurous  duty  that  men  think  most 
perilous,  doing  most  unconventional  work  there,  say- 
ing, "The  Master  whose  I  am  and  whom  I  serve  is 
leading  me." 

I  am  talking  all  in  vain  unless  you  who  are  Chris- 
tians understand  me.  Do  you  remember  an  old 
life  when  you  alternately  stood  guard  over  your 
character  and  tried  to  live  alive,  real  life?  Some- 
times it  was  one  and  sometimes  it  was  the  other; 
sometimes  safety  and  peace,  sometimes  progress  and 
action.  And  then  came  Christ.  You  gave  yourself 
to  Him.  The  new  life  opened.  You  have  lived 
since  then  with  a  new  consciousness — that  you  were 
His — filling  everything,  sinking  down  and  spreading 
out  through  all  of  you.  Tell  me  the  story  of  that 
life.  Is  it  not  that  safety  has  ceased  to  be  sluggish 
and  action  has  ceased  to  be  dangerous  to  you,  now 
that  safety  is  rest  in  Christ  and  action  is  work  for 
Him?  He  guards  you,  and  that  stimulates  you. 
He  sets  you  to  work,  and  that  rests  you.     Righteous- 


THE   ARK   OF   THE   COVENANT  345 

ness  and  peace,  which  used  to  be  at  variance  in  your 
life,  have  kissed  each  other  and  are  reconciled. 

Is  not  this  what  we  want? — to  be  safe  with  a  se- 
curity that  is  not  cowardice  or  palsy,  to  be  alive  with 
a  vitality  that  is  not  wearing  us  out — safety  and 
progress?  And  we  can  have  them  both  only  as  we 
do  not  dare  to  try  to  make  these  lives  our  own,  but 
give  them  up  to  God,  and  live  them  not  for  our- 
selves but  for  Him.  The  Jew  who  wants  safety 
only  stays  ignominiously  in  Egypt.  The  Jew  who 
wants  freedom  only  starts  out  by  himself  across  the 
desert  and  is  seen  no  more,  but  leaves  his  bones 
whitening  among  the  sands.  The  Jew  who  wants 
safety  and  freedom  both  gives  himself  to  God  and 
follows  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant. 

And  so  the  Christian  follows  Christ.  Now  upon 
this  side  and  now  upon  that  he  wanders  in  his  weak- 
ness, but  he  always  comes  back  to  the  central  track 
in  which  the  Ark  has  passed.  He  will  carry  nothing 
with  him  that  cannot  go  through  the  often  straight 
and  narrow  places  where  his  Leader  walks.  He  will 
never  let  a  thought  of  fear  come  in  so  long  as  he 
sees  that  Leader  out  before  him,  to  show  him  that 
he  is  on  the  right  road.  And  so  at  last,  just  as  the 
ark  led  the  Jews  across  the  Jordan  and  into  the 
Promised  Land,  and  there  they  set  it  down  in  its  new 
place,  and  lived  the  new  life  of  their  new  home  around 
it ;  so  when  Christ  has  led  us  safely  intoHeaven,  He 
who  has  led  us  shall  take  His  place  in  our  midst, 
and,  gathered  around  Him,  the  new  life  of  the  re- 
deemed soul  shall  begin  and  go  on,  by  His  grace, 
in  perfect  safety  and  unhindered  growth  forever. 


XX. 

SONS   OF   GOD. 

"  Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  ap- 
pear what  we  shall  be."  — i  John  iii.  2. 

"We  are  the  sons  of  God,"  St.  John  says,  "and 
it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be."  He  says 
we.  He  binds  his  own  experience  to  his  disciples.' 
He  does  not  stand  apart,  either  telling  them  of 
something  which  belongs  only  to  himself  or  an- 
nouncing what  concerns  only  them.  He  does  not 
say  "I"  or  "you,"  but  "we."  His  present  and 
future  are  theirs,  and  theirs  are  his.  And  this  is 
almost  always  St.  John's  way.  It  seems  to  be  the 
necessary  character  of  all  the  truest  and  deepest  re- 
ligion when  it  is  experimentally  conceived.  The 
profoundest  experiences  admit  of  no  monopoly. 
The  attempt  to  limit  them  strips  their  whole  value 
out  of  them.  I  cannot  believe  in  the  highest  spirit- 
ual privileges  for  myself,  unless  I  believe  in  their 
possibility  for  you;  nor  can  I  really  think  them 
possible  for  you  unless  I  know  that  I  too  may  have 
them.  So  it  is  by  the  experimental  character 
of  all  his  religion,  the  way  in  which  his  theology 
comes  out  of  his  life,  that  St.  John  is  brought  into 
clear    understanding    of    and    sympathy   with    the 

346 


SONS   OF   GOD  347 

spiritual  life  of  others,  and  says,  "  We  are  the  sons 
of  God." 

We  want  to  look  at  this  statement  of  the  Chris- 
tian life,  with  reference  to  its  present  and  its  future, 
which  John  makes  for  himself  and  those  who  beHeve 
with  him.  Servants  of  Christ  together,  they  lived 
the  same  life  now,  and  the  same  prospects  stretched 
out  before  them  all.  They  were  the  sons  of  God, 
and  that  sonship  must  open  into  a  fuller  life  which 
they  could  not  yet  grasp  or  understand.  It  did  not 
yet  appear  what  they  should  be.  These  were  the 
two  elements  of  their  life. 

And  notice,  first,  how  these  are  really  the  ele- 
ments of  all  the  highest  and  most  successful  living. 
All  the  best  life  that  we  see  about  us,  all  the  truest 
parts  of  our  own  life,  have  been  characterized  by  a 
certain  combination.  They  have  united  a  clear, 
tangible,  intelligible  present  to  a  vast  and  indefinite 
future.  Out  from  some  fixed  and  certain  point, 
where  everything  was  solid  and  indisputable,  they 
have  reached  into  a  distance  which  stretched  beyond 
their  ken  and  lost  itself  in  visions  of  unexplored 
possibilities.  The  best  moments  of  all  our  lives,  as 
we  look  back  upon  them,  seem,  I  am  sure,  to  be 
the  times  when  we  were  clearest  about  our  present 
position  and  present  duty,  and  when  the  possibili^ 
ties  of  life  seemed  most  infinite  to  us.  The  best 
scenes  in  the  ever-moving  panorama  have  been  those 
which  had  in  them  the  elements  of  the  best  pictures 
— a  clear,  strong  foreground,  where  the  foot  was 
planted  solidly,  and  a  vast  vague  outlook,  where  the 
imagination  might  find  endless  room  to  range;   a 


348  SONS   OF   GOD 

steady  point  to  stand  on  and  infinity  to  look  into. 
Both  are  essential  to  the  happiest  and  largest  life, — 
not  merely  a  vast  future  and  not  merely  a  solid 
present,  but  the  two  together. 

Just  look  at  one  or  two  of  the  points  of  life  where 
these  two  characteristics  supremely  meet,  and  see  if 
they  are  not  the  strongest  and  most  beautiful.  They 
meet  in  childhood  most  pre-eminently.  Nowhere 
is  the  present  so  definite  and  clear  as  there.  The 
simple  relations  that  surround  his  life,  the  few  plain 
duties  that  belong  to  every  day,  the  narrow  circle  in 
which  his  habits  move,  the  comprehensible  authority 
that  presses  him  on  every  side — all  make  the  child's 
life  tangible  with  a  distinctness  that  is  lost  in  the 
complicated  relations  that  come  with  later  years. 
He  is  one  thing — his  father's  son.  That  is  his  every- 
thing— his  fountain  of  enjoyment,  his  law  of  work, 
his  rest,  and  his  incitement.  But  at  the  same  time, 
what  wide  outlooks  from  that  strong  simple  stand- 
ing point!  What  visions  come  to  that  boy,  shut  in 
to  the  limits  of  his  father's  care!  How  vast  life 
looks  to  him!  Just  because  the  foreground  is  so 
sharp  and  real,  the  distant  stretches  into  a  more 
measureless  infinity.  Because  he  understands  the 
limited  present  so  clearly,  he  dreams  of  the  future 
so  enthusiastically.  But  is  it  not  the  union  of  these 
two,  of  the  limited  present  with  the  limitless  future, 
that  makes  the  charm  and  romance  of  his  child- 
liood?  He  knows  what  he  is  now,  but  it  doth  not 
yet  appear  what  he  shall  be. 

There  is  another  moment  in  which  the  same 
union  appears,  and  to  which  something  of  the  same 


SONS   OF   GOD  349 

charm  belongs.     It  is  the  time  when  the  young  man 
has  just  chosen  his  profession  and  looks  out  into  the 
possibilities  of  that  work  in  life  whose  new  tools  are 
thrilling  the  unfamiliar  hands  that  have  just  grasped 
them.     I  think  that  there  is  no  more  interesting  or 
beautiful  time  in  life.     He  is  a  boy  no  longer.     The 
boyish  fixedness  in  the  limitations  of  his  home  is 
over.     Those  doors  have  opened  years  ago,  and  let 
him  out  into  the  unsettledness  that  belongs  next  in 
life.     He   has    passed   through   the  years  of  early 
youth,    the   years    in   college,   when   everything  is 
vague  and  doubtful,  when  the  boy  does  not  know 
either  what  he  is  to  be  or  what  he  is.     At  last  his 
feet  have  touched  the  solid  ground.     "I  am  this,'' 
he  is  able  to  say  once  more.     "Here  is  my  ground. 
Now    I    am    a   doctor,   a  merchant,   a   minister,   a 
lawyer."     It  is  not  mere  conceit  in  the  new  sign- 
board or  the  new  surplice  that  you  see  glowing  in 
his  face;  it  is  a  healthy  satisfaction  in  being  some- 
thing,  and  knowing  what  he  is.     But  in  that  glow- 
ing moment  does  he  see  what  he  shall  be?     Do  any 
limits  of  his  new  work  stand  up  in  the  distance?     Is 
it  not  just  then,  when  his  feet  are  set  firm  on  the 
strong  ground,  that  the  horizon  of  his  profession 
sweeps  away  from  him?     Never  before  and  never 
after  does  the  work  seem  so  vast.     To  be  the  per- 
fect   lawyer,    the    perfect     minister,    the    perfect 
merchant,  never  before  and   never  after  seems  so 
unattainable.      By  and  by,  among  the   ridges    and 
the  hollows  of  his  professional  life,  the  horizon  of 
its  possibilities  contracts,  and  he  gets  some  point  in 
his  eye  which  is  the  farthest  that  he  can  attain ;  but 


350  SONS   OF   GOD 

the  glory  of  this  first  moment  is  that  the  new  work 
allows  itself  no  limits,  and  the  neophyte,  strong  in 
a  definite  task  and  gazing  into  an  indefinite  prospect, 
can  say  :  "  I  am  this  now.  What  I  shall  be  doth  not 
yet  appear." 

The  same  is  true  of  the  clear  and  convinced  ac- 
ceptance of  any  strong,  clear  truth.  You  come  to 
the  unhesitating  belief  in  any  fundamental  principle 
in  philosophy  or  politics  or  social  life,  and  are  there 
not  two  elements  in  the  satisfaction  of  that  strong 
moment  when  you  fasten  yourself  upon  it?  You 
say:  "This  is  strong;  how  good  it  is  to  be  here!  " 
and  you  say  also:  "I  wonder  where  this  will  carry 
me,- — what  other  thing  shall  I  come  to  believe  be- 
cause of  my  believing  this?  *'  At  that  good  moment 
when  you  thoroughly  believe  in  a  new  truth,  your 
feet  plant  themselves  firmer  and  your  eyes  look  out 
wider.  The  ground  grows  solid  under  you  and  the 
distance  vast  before  you. 

As  one  says  this,  he  longs  to  stop  and  point  out 
to  the  young  people  who  listen  to  him  what  a  lesson 
and  law  of  life  all  this  involves.  Fixity  and  range, 
a  definite  working-place  and  a  vast  prospect, — these 
are  the  necessary  conditions  of  the  best  and  most 
effective  life.  Every  man  must  have  these  two 
conditions,  or  his  life  grows  weak  and  narrow. 
What  then?  One  wants  to  say  these  two  things: 
First,  find  yourself  a  place.  Do  not  be  drifting 
hither  and  thither,  ready  to  do  anything  and  doing 
nothing.  Be  something  as  early  and  as  wisely  as 
you  can  find  for  yourself  a  place  in  some  profession, 
in  some  of  the  clear,  tangible,  definite  tasks  of  men. 


SONS   OF   GOD  351 

Do  not  let  the  accident  of  wealth  be  your  curse  by 
standing  between  you  and  a  work  in  life.  Do  not 
let  anything  hinder  you  from  the  deep  satisfaction 
of  knowing  something,  doing  something,  being 
something,  having  something, —  of  which  you  can 
say  to  yourself  and  other  people,  "I  am  this." 
However  it  may  be  in  other  lands,  there  is  no  chance 
here  in  America  for  a  man  to  do  his  best  good  or 
live  his  best  life  except  in  some  definite  and  recog- 
nized employment  of  his  powers.  But  be  sure  your 
work  is  large  enough  to  give  you  prospects,  and  be 
sure  you  see  the  prospects  that  it  offers.  No  pro- 
fession is  worthy  that  does  not  give  a  man  room  to 
look  out  into  more  usefulness  and  higher  character 
than  he  can  comprehend  at  once;  but  any  honest 
task  is  capable  of  being  so  largely  conceived  that  he 
who  enters  into  it  may  see  stretching  before  him  the 
promise  of  things  to  do  and  be  that  will  stir  his  en- 
thusiasm and  satisfy  his  best  desires. 

So  this  is  the  lesson  of  our  truth:  Be  something 
definite  and  special,  but  let  that  something  be  so 
large,  and  be  it  in  so  large  a  spirit,  that  you  shall  not 
be  able  to  be  it  all  at  once,  but  that  it  shall  tempt 
you  on  forever  to  indefinitely  greater  things.  Two 
kinds  of  creatures  haunt  our  city  as  they  have 
haunted  cities  ever  since  Cain,  the  son  of  Adam, 
built  the  first.  We  know  them  both,  and  we  have 
seen  the  harm  that  both  can  do.  One  is  the  vision- 
ary and  the  other  is  the  drudge.  The  visionary  is 
the  man  who  has  no  present;  the  drudge  is  the  man 
who  has  no  future.  The  visionary  never  can  say, 
"Now,  I  am  this."     The  drudge  never  lifts  up  his 


352  SONS   OF  GOD 

eye?  rnd  says,  "It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  I  shall 
be."  To  the  visionary  all  is  future;  to  the  drudge 
there  is  nothing  but  the  present.  One's  life  floats 
off  like  the  smoke  from  the  city's  chimneys;  the 
other's  runs  off  like  water  from  the  city's  streets.  To 
be  saved  from  being  either,  to  be  strong  and  per- 
manent and  useful — that  can  come  only  by  joining  a 
clear,  sharp,  solid  work  to  large  hopes  and  great  am- 
bitions; by  seeing  visions  from  some  peak  of  rock. 
But  now  we  turn  from  all  this  general  discussion 
to  find  the  same  principle  which  we  have  been  de- 
scribing at  work  in  Christian  life.  St,  John  says, 
"Now  are  we  the  sons  of  God."  There  is  the  pres- 
ent for  him  and  his  disciples.  Ah,  my  dear  friends, 
we  must  put  ourselves  back  into  a  time  when  the 
simplest  truths  of  Christianity  were  all  new;  we 
must  strip  off  all  the  familiarity  which  Christian 
thought  and  love  have  clustered  about  the  idea  of 
God's  Fatherhood  before  we  can  understand  how 
strong  and  clear  a  fact  that  was  in  the  experience  of 
those  first  disciples.  "We  are  the  sons  of  God." 
Except  in  some  inspired  poet  here  and  there,  the 
first  sense  that  all  men  were  God's  children  had  been 
lost.  Men  had  counted  themselves  and  treated  their 
brethren  like  brutes.  They  had  drifted  alike  out 
of  the  responsibilities  and  the  joys  of  sonship  to  the 
Almighty.  Then  Christ  had  come  and  made  them 
again,  so  far  as  they  would  accept  His  blessing,  the 
sons  of  God.  "To  as  many  as  received  Him,  to 
them  gave  He  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God." 
What  does  that  mean?  Not  that  He  made  men 
something  which  it  had  never  been  in  man  to  be 


SONS  OF  GOD  353 

before;  He  made  it  possible  for  man  to  come  where 
he  always  had  belonged.  Not  that  He  established 
a  new  relationship  between  man  and  his  Creator; 
He  declared  the  beauty  and  glory  of  the  first  rela- 
tionship from  which  man  had  voluntarily  departed. 
It  was  a  redemption.  It  is  nowhere  said  that  Christ 
made  God  man's  Father.  He  made  man  God's 
child  by  showing  him  the  unquenched  love  that  was 
in  his  Father's  heart,  and  then  by  the  touch  of  love, 
made  vital  and  strong  by  suffering,  wakening  up  the 
divine  consciousness,  the  power  of  godliness,  the 
power  of  living  like  a  child  of  God,  in  the  human 
heart. 

I  said  how  new  and  strong  a  fact  that  was  to 
those  disciples,  but  how  new  and  strong  it  is  to  any 
man  now  who  really  plants  his  feet  upon  it!  You 
have  been  living  like  a  child  of  the  world  or  a  child 
of  the  devil.  Nothing  that  you  ever  do  or  say 
would  ever  indicate — nay,  you  have  yourself  for- 
gotten— that  there  is  anything  divine  about  you. 
None  of  the  restraints  and  none  of  the  incentives  of 
high  parentage  are  in  your  life.  But  Christ  comes, 
comes  to  you  as  truly  as  He  came  to  those  peasants 
fishing  on  the  lake,  or  to  that  tax-man  sitting  at  his 
table.  He  brings  and  sets  before  you  a  human  life. 
How  human  it  is  every  act  in  it  bears  witness.  If 
any  one  tells  you  that  He  is  different  from  you,  of 
another  race,  you  cry:  "No;  this  is  a  man  indeed, 
the  type,  the  pattern,  the  interpreter  of  this  human- 
ity of  mine.  He  is  a  man  like  me,  and  yet  behold 
He  surely  is  a  Son  of  God.  Behold  the  filialness 
that  runs  through  all  His  life.     He  has  the  divine 


354  SONS   OF   GOD 

nature  in  Him  everywhere.  He  calls  God  His 
Father  not  merely  in  His  words  but  in  His  actions. 
My  Brother,  and  the  Son  of  God!  What  am  I, 
then?"  You  think,  and  the  thought  grows  into  a 
new  consciousness  that  floods  your  life  with  peace 
and  solemnity  and  strength:  "Why,  then,  I  too 
am  God's  son.  Then  He  was  right  when  He 
talked  about  'His  Father'  and  '  My  Father.'  He 
has  taught  me  that  God  is  my  Father.  He  has 
made  me  a  son  of  God."  That  is  what  it  means! 
You  have  received  Him  and  He  has  given  you  the 
power  to  become  a  son  of  God.  And  what  then? 
Standing  strong  upon  that  point  how  clear  it  is! 
The  old  doubts  of  your  life — the  doubts  about 
what  you  are  and  how  you  came  here  and  whether 
it  is  worth  while  to  be  here  at  all — are  all  answered 
in  this  new  certainty  that  you  are  God's  son.  You 
are  no  longer  bewildered  about  duty;  you  have 
accepted  your  Father's  law.  You  are  not  in  doubt 
how  to  treat  these  men  about  you, — they  are  your 
Father's  children.  Everything  has  grown  definite 
and  plain  in  that.  The  sand  under  your  feet  has 
turned  to  rock.  You  have  a  strong  and  sure  pres- 
ent standing-place,  now  that  you  can  say,  "I  am  a 
son  of  God." 

But  yet,  with  all  that  new  preciseness,  has  not  the 
other  element  of  strong  life  come  too?  Has  not 
the  future  widened  as  the  present  has  grown  firm 
beneath  you?  Is  not  life  more  infinite,  now  that  the 
central  point  of  life  is  clear?  While  you  did  not 
know  what  you  were,  it  did  not  seem  very  likely 
that  you  would  ever  be  anything  more.     Now  that 


SONS  OF  GOD  355 

you  know  you  are  God's  child,  you  are  sure  that 
there  are  untold,  unguessed  regions  of  h'fe  and  char- 
acter. This  is  but  the  beginning.  It  doth  not  yet 
appear  what  you  shall  be.  The  end  is  very  far — a 
whole  eternity  away. 

I  feel  sure  that  I  am  touching  here  one  of  the 
commonest  consciousnesses  of  the  Christian  life. 
Its  vastness  is  bound  up  with  its  first  simple  cer- 
tainty. As  it  assures  itself  of  a  present  relationship 
to  God  new  features  open  before  it.  The  clearer  it 
becomes  in  realizing  what  it  is,  the  more  vast  and 
vague  becomes  to  it  the  prospect  of  what  it  is  to  be. 
I  should  like  to  suggest  to  you  how  this  appears  in 
several  different  departments  of  the  Christian  life. 

First,  it  is  true  of  Christian  belief.  I  think  that 
this  forces  itself  upon  us  constantly — that  it  is  the 
shallow  and  not  the  profound,  the  half  and  not  the 
whole  believer  who  thinks  that  he  has  exhausted 
the  capacities  of  his  belief.  The  more  profound  a 
man  is  in  his  belief  the  more  he  looks  forward  and 
expects  developments  and  enlargements  of  what  he 
now  holds  to  be  true.  Take  two  believers  in  any 
doctrine — of  the  Trinity,  for  instance,  or  of  the 
Atonement.  Let  one  of  them  be  the  ordinary  flip- 
pant matter-of-course  believer,  of  whose  kind  our 
churches  are  so  full.  And  let  the  other  be  a  man 
whose  very  soul  has  drunk  in  the  truth  that  he  be- 
lieves, who  lives  upon  it,  who  has  seized  it  with  the 
strong  eagerness  of  a  hungry  heart.  The  first  of 
these  will  surely  be  the  man  who  will  expect  no 
opening  or  richening  of  the  faith  he  holds,  who  will 
expect  to  believe  in  the  Trinity  or  the  Atonement 


356  SONS  OF  GOD 

always  just  exactly  as  he  believes  in  it  to-day,  and 
who  will  insist  that  other  men  shall  hold  his  truth 
just  after  his  pattern,  and  be  indignant  at  every  least 
departure  from  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who 
holds  the  doctrine  more  profoundly  will  be  the  man 
who  says:  "This  doctrine  I  shall  always  hold,  but 
the  very  preciousnes  of  it  shows  me  that  it  is  far  too 
rich  for  me  to  have  comprehended  it  completely.  I 
have  not  mastered  all  its  power.  I  have  not  fathomed 
all  its  mystery.  New  sides  it  surely  has  to  turn  to 
me.  I  shall  see  it  new  forever."  And  so  he  will 
look  with  tolerance  upon  his  brethren  who  already 
see  this  truth  in  other  lights  than  his.  The  deepest 
faith  is  strongest  in  hope  and  charity.  He  who 
most  profoundly  knows  that  he  is  the  son  of  God  is 
most  ready  to  leave  the  future  to  his  Father,  most 
ready  to  own  that  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  he 
shall  be. 

And  the  same  thing  is  true  about  the  Christian 
affections  as  about  the  Christian  faith.  They,  too, 
as  they  grow  deeper  and  stronger  under  the  influence 
of  Christ,  become  aware  of  their  own  present  limita- 
tions and  look  forward  to  a  vast,  as  yet  unknown, 
extension.  The  man  who  has  never  learned  that  he 
is  a  son  of  God  is  satisfied  with  the  little  ordinary 
exercise  of  his  affectional  nature  in  the  common  re- 
lationship of  daily  life.  To  love  his  children  and 
his  country  with  the  ordinary  warmth  of  parentship 
and  patriotism,  and  so  do  his  duty  respectably  to 
both  out  of  this  commonplace  affection,  seems  to 
him  enough.  He  thinks  of  nothing  further.  But 
make    that    man    God's   son,   deepen  his  life  with 


SONS  OF  GOD  357 

Christ,  give  to  everything  about  him  the  sweet 
solemnity  which  it  gathers  from  the  Father's  hands 
that  hold  it,  and  how  that  man's  affections 
strengthen !  With  what  new  vehemence  he  loves 
and  hates!  How  the  new  holiness  he  sees  sum- 
mons an  unguessed  power  of  admiration,  and  the 
meanness  which  he  used  to  disregard  stirs  him  with 
passionate  indignation !  How  the  sight  of  misery 
evokes  a  new  kind  of  pity,  and  the  sight  of  joy  a 
strangely  heightened  gratitude  and  congratulation! 
But  in  this  deepening  of  the  affections  they  find  out 
their  imperfection.  There  are  some  tasks  they  can- 
not undertake.  Do  you  not  know  it?  As  you  grow 
more  sensitive  there  open  to  you  efforts  to  which 
your  sensitiveness  is  not  equal.  There  is  a  virtue 
above  praise,  a  pain  that  outgoes  pity,  a  voice  that 
is  too  terrible  for  blame,  a  joy  that  we  dare  not 
congratulate.  All  these  we  pass  back  beyond  our- 
selves to  God  who  alone  is  fit  to  deal  with  them; 
but  yet  they  open  to  us  prospects  of  growth,  hints, 
and  suggestions  that  the  affectional  life  in  us  has  only 
just  begun  its  work  and  is  some  day  to  attain  a 
power  of  enjoyment  and  culture  which  is  yet  un- 
imagined. 

Everywhere  with  the  strengthening  and  clarifying 
of  any  of  our  powers,  its  range  and  outlook  widens. 
It  is  so  with  Christian  work  as  well  as  with  faith 
and  affection.  A  man  whose  labor  has  been  desul- 
tory, purposeless,  unintelligent,  begins  to  work  as  a 
son  of  God.  I  have  often  tried  to  describe  what 
that  change  is.  It  is  not  that  the  occupations  alter. 
They  may  go  on  just  the  same.     In  his  store  or  in 


358  SONS   OF   GOD 

his  study  the  man  still  handles  the  same  tools,  and 
all  his  outside  life  remains  unchanged.     The  differ- 
ence is  in  the  spirit  which  he  works  with.     Once  it 
was    for    himself,   now  it  is  for  the  Father   he  has 
found.      Once  it  was  as  his  own  slave,  now  it  is  as 
the  willing  servant  of  that  Christ  who  has  made  him 
a  son  of  God.      What  new  power  will  that  put  into 
his  work?    It  will  make  it  certainly  more  precise  and 
conscientious  in  every  least  detail.    Just  as  his  Lord 
is  more  sacred  to  him  than  himself,  just  as  the  desire 
to  do  His  will  precisely  becomes  stronger  than  any 
old  impulse  of  self-seeking,  just  so  will  each  minutest 
part  of  all  his  work  be  faithfully  and  scrupulously 
done;  but  at  the  same  time   the  greatness   of  the 
Christ  for  whom  he  works  will  enter  into  his  labor 
and  spread  it  out  to  infinite  results.      His  work  will 
enter  into  the  great  fulfilment  of  the  Divine  Will 
which  is  going  on  all  through  the  universe,  and  be 
inspired  by  the  anticipation  of  its  endless  prospects. 
Still  the  new  son  of  God  works  at  the  forge  or  the 
bar,  but  wherever  he  works,  working  for  Christ,  he 
is  able  to  meet  Christ's  command  and  labor  not  for 
the  meat  which  perisheth,  but  for  that  which  en- 
dureth  unto  everlasting  life.      Ah,  my  dear  friends, 
is  it  not  what  we  need?    Something  which  shall  take 
these  daily  tasks  of  ours  which  are  so  trivial  that  we 
either  neglect  them  or  else  are  slaves  to  them,  and 
redeem  them  from  their  littleness  so  that  we  shall 
do  them  with  a  joyful  conscientiousness,  and  at  the 
same  time  find  in  them    continual    suggestions   of 
larger  tasks,  of  the  infinite  issues  of  every  faithful 
work  in  the  unknown  future?    And  that  can  come 


SONS  OF  GOD  359 

only  by  our  whole  life  being  taken  up  and  set  over 
on  to  new  ground  where  we  shall  do  everything  for 
God. 

Here,  then,  are  these  three—knowledge,  affection, 
work.  In  each  of  them  do  we  not  see  the  power  of 
Christianity  at  once  to  intensify  the  present  and  to 
expand  the  future  ?  As  we  look  at  the  men  in  his- 
tory whose  lives  have  been  most  full  of  the  sense  of 
their  own  sonship  and  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
something  of  the  same  character  seems  to  shine  out 
in  all  of  their  diversity.  Think  of  Moses,  the  pa- 
tient, faithful  governor,  the  man  of  affairs,  shaping 
out  for  his  people  a  scheme  of  government  full  of 
minute  details,  alert,  vivid,  strong,  feeling  the  pres- 
ent always  under  his  feet  and  yet  yearning  for  the 
unseen  things  to  which  all  these  seen  things 
pointed,  the  prophet  of  the  future  as  well  as  the 
toiler  in  the  present,  enduring  the  present  "as  see- 
ing Him  who  is  invisible."  Look  at  David,  with 
the  clearest  present  experiences  of  pain  and  joy,  of 
rapture,  sin,  and  repentance  that  any  man  ever  had, 
at  least  that  any  man  ever  told,  yet  always  su"-crest- 
ing  larger  experiences  than  his  own,  so  that  the 
Psalms  which  he  wrote  about  himself  have  even 
availed  to  sing  the  story  of  the  humiliation  and  the 
triumph  of  the  incarnate  God.  Think  of  the  Pro- 
phets, those  real  seers  of  the  Old  Testament,  seeing 
the  future  because  they  saw  the  present  so  pro- 
foundly, coming  by  insight  into  foresight.  Think 
of  Paul  with  his  clear  creed,  yet  glorying  in  his 
ignorance  of  what  was  still  beyond.  "I  am  this 
now,"  each  of  them  in  his  own  way  seems  to  cry, 


360  SONS   OF   GOD 

"this  now  certainly  and  clearly,  but  there  is  more 
beyond.  This  is  only  the  beginning.  It  doth  not 
yet  appear  what  we  shall  be."  There  lies  the  charm 
and  strength  of  all  of  them.  Nay,  why  should  we 
stop  with  them,  why  should  we  not  dare  to  speak  of 
Jesus? — fastening  Himself  into  His  own  present 
there  in  Palestine,  with  a  strength  that  has  never 
been  equalled,  and  yet  reaching  out  and  claiming 
eternity  for  the  fulfilment  of  His  purposes.  He  was 
the  perfect  Son  of  God,  so  eager  about  His  Father's 
business,  and  yet  using  those  mysterious  words,  "Of 
that  day  knoweth  no  man,  no,  not  the  angels  which 
are  in  heaven,  neither  the  Son,  but  the  Father" — 
the  vivid  present  and  the  unknown  future.  "Now 
are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  we  shall  be." 

It  is  strange  how,  if  we  look  widely  enough,  the 
needs  of  life,  the  things  that  are  wanting  to  make 
life  what  it  ought  to  be,  are  everywhere  the  same. 
What  do  we  need  in  religion?  Greater  clearness 
and  greater  breadth,  a  sharper  faith  and  a  larger 
expectation,  less  vagueness  and  less  bigotry.  What 
do  we  need  in  politics  and  public  life?  More  faith- 
fulness and  more  outlook,  a  more  honest  and  de- 
voted care  for  every  day's  details  of  public  business 
and  a  more  inspired  prospect  of  the  better  possibili- 
ties of  government,  less  unfaithfulness  and  less 
routine.  What  do  we  need  in  education?  More 
concientious  hard  work  and  larger  thoughts  of  learn- 
ing, less  superficialness  and  less  pedantry.  What  do 
you  need  in  your  daily  life?  Ah!  do  you  not  know 
well  enough?     Is  it  not  that  you  should  do   your 


SONS   OF   GOD  361 

duty  and  hold  your  truth  at  once  more  strictly  and 
more  largely?  You  want  to  go  to  your  life  to-mor- 
row morning  and  take  it  up  with  other  hands,  to 
delight  in  it,  to  dwell  on  every  detail  of  it  with  joy, 
to  do  it  with  a  thoroughness  that  you  have  lamenta- 
bly lacked  before;  and  yet  not  to  be  crushed  by  it, 
not  to  be  reduced  to  a  mere  school-teaching  or  shop- 
tending  or  housekeeping  machine, — but  to  see  be- 
yond your  work  into  eternity.  Everywhere  the  need 
is  still  the  same,  from  the  senator  at  the  capital 
down  to  the  school  boy  at  his  desk, — a  sharper  pres- 
ent and  a  vaster  future ;  not  either  gained  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  other,  but  both  together  making  life 
shine  with  the  intensity  and  the  broadness  of  the  sun. 
And  can  that  need,  the  same  everywhere,  be  ever 
everywhere  supplied?  It  can,  if  men  can  ever  really 
come  to  be  the  sons  of  God,  if  life  can  be  all  over 
the  wide  earth  the  doing  of  His  will  in  grateful  love, 
— if  everywhere  men  can  feel  His  eye  judging  their 
hourly  faithfulness  and  see  His  hand  pointing  them 
on  into  infinity.  When  that  comes  for  all  the  world, 
then  the  world's  redemption  is  attained  and  its  new 
life  begins.  When  that  comes  for  you  and  me,  then 
we  are  redeemed  and  our  new  life  is  begun. 

We  grow  profoundly  weary  of  hearing  narrow 
men — wrapped  up  in  the  present,  given  to  some  little 
business,  shutting  their  eyes  to  all  the  vast  outlooks 
of  life — pour  their  cheap  sneers  upon  any  feeble  ef- 
fort that  any  poor  soul  near  them  makes  to  realize  a 
higher  or  a  little  broader  life,  to  live  for  other  peo- 
ple, to  live  for  their  own  souls,  to  live  for  God. 
There  is  hardly  any  such  attempt,  however  clumsy, 


362  SONS   OF   GOD 

that  is  not  more  respectable  than  the  miserable  cyni- 
cism with  which  men,  who  know  nothing  of  the  im- 
pulse out  of  which  it  springs,  stand  round  and  try  to 
sneer  it  down.  But  still  the  weakness  of  very  many 
of  such  attempts  is  evident  enough.  Men  try  after 
the  vague  and  distant  who  have  not  first  fastened 
themselves  in  the  tangible  and  near.  To  be  a 
maundering  philanthropist,  and  weep  over  the  woes 
of  men  half-round  the  globe  while  your  brother  begs 
in  vain  at  your  door;  to  long  for  the  conversion  of 
China  while  the  heathenism  here  in  Boston  does  not 
kindle  you  or  shame  you;  to  dwell  with  rapture  on 
the  service  you  will  do  for  God  all  through  eternity 
in  heaven,  and  yet  let  the  task  that  He  has  given 
you  to  do  to-day  lie  unattacked ;  these  have  been 
the  subjects  of  cheap  satire  till  it  is  commonplace 
enough.  But  it  is  not  always,  by  any  means,  the 
contemptible  hypocrisy  that  men  suppose.  It  is  a 
foolish,  helpless  reaching  out  after  the  future,  with 
no  strong  foothold  in  the  present.  Still  it  does 
show  an  aspiration,  however  ignorant,  a  longing, 
however  shallow.  But  it  must  deepen  itself  with 
present  duty.  It  must  strongly  fasten  itself  in  the 
near.  So  only  can  it  reach  out  to  the  future  and  the 
distant  worthily  and  strongly.  The  philanthropist 
whose  care  for  the  poor  child  who  has  fallen  in  the 
street  here  is  intensified  by  the  cry  of  suffering  that 
reaches  him  from  a  suffering  world,  the  Christian 
who  is  first  in  evangelizing  the  home  heathen  and 
the  heathen  of  China  too,  the  saint  who,  dreaming 
of  heaven,  makes  earth  heavenly  with  the  daily  do- 
ing of  duty  and  service  of  the  Lord, — there  are  no 


SONS  OF  GOD  363 

sneers  for  them  ;  or  the  few  poor  creatures  who  ven- 
ture to  pour  their  feeble  contempt  on  lives  like  these 
have  it  blown  back  in  their  own  faces,  and  find 
themselves  despised. 

I  dare  to  hope  that  what  T  have  said  to  you  to- 
day—  if  it  meets  any  of  your  experiences  and  falls 
in  with  any  of  your  desires — will  give  you  help.  It 
may  be  that  there  is  some  one  here  who  has  found 
just  the  dissatisfaction  with  life  that  I  have  aimed 
at.  Such  an  one  says:  "I  would  not  be  what  I  have 
been.  I  vacillate  between  two  wrong  conditions. 
When  I  try  to  do  my  duty  faithfully  I  grow  a  slave 
to  its  details,  and  every  lofty  expectation  and  spirit- 
ual wish  is  lost.  When  I  fling  my  soul  out  into  the 
future  and  expect  eternity  and  reach  after  heaven, 
my  present  work,  the  life  that  I  ought  to  be  living 
now,  grows  weak  and  lies  neglected."  Ah,  if  it 
were  only  as  easy  to  help  you  to  the  remedy  as  it  is 
to  tell  you  what  you  need.  You  must  be  a  son  of 
God!  That  is  your  only  salvation.  And  if  you  ask 
me,  "How  can  I  be  God's  son?"  the  answer  is: 
"You  are  God's  son  already,  if  you  only  knew  it." 
And  if  you  say,  "How  can  I  know  it?"  then  you 
give  me  a  chance  to  tell  you  once  more  what  it  is 
always  such  a  joy  to  tell:  "Jesus,  God's  Son,  your 
Brother,  came  to  show  it  to  you.  He  must  show  it 
to  you.  You  must  go  to  Him, — nay,  you  must  let 
Him  come  and  speak  to  you.  You  must  see  His 
filialness.  You  must  hear  His  message.  You  must 
feel  the  power  of  His  Cross  telling  you  how  your 
Father  loved  you.     'He  that  hath  seen    me    hath 


364  SONS   OF  GOD 

seen    the    Father,'    He   declared.      You    must   see 
Him  with  your  soul,  and  so  you  shall  see  God." 

When  that  is  done,  then  the  new  consciousness  of 
sonship  shall  fill  you.  Everything  you  do  and  think 
and  say  shall  be  deep  and  strong  and  happy  with 
your  Father's  presence.  You  shall  go  on  your  way 
singing,  "Now  I  am  a  son  of  God."  And  what 
then?  The  infinite  future  shall  open  around  the 
clear  and  beautiful  present.  "What  is  this  new  life 
to  come  to?  I  cannot  tell.  It  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  I  shall  be."  Suspicions  and  faint  glimpses  of 
it  shall  come  to  you  as  you  work;  the  thought  of 
those  who  once  were  with  you  and  have  gone  on  be- 
fore you,  to  learn  more  of  the  mystery  of  love,  shall 
strengthen  and  encourage  you;  but  yet  you  shall 
not  be  impatient.  Enough  that  now  you  are  God's 
son,  and  that  all  which  that  sonship  contains  is 
waiting  for  you.  Enough  that  you  are  on  the  sea, 
with  your  ship's  prow  set  towards  the  perfect  shore. 
What  does  it  matter  whether  the  storms  make  your 
voyage  a  day  more  or  less?  The  distance  before  you 
you  cannot  read,  but  in  it  is  the  same  God  who  is 
with  you.  You  live  by  Him,  and  so  you  live  deeper 
and  deeper  into  Him.  Your  life  is  full,  through 
Him,  of  those  two  powers  by  which  a  human  life  is 
saved, — faithfulness  and  hope, — faithfulness  made 
enthusiastic  by  hope,  and  hope  made  clear  by  faith- 
fulness.  That  is  eternal  life — to  know  God  by  Christ. 


XXI. 
THE   FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES. 

A  NEW   year's   sermon. 

"  And  I  that  am  the  Lord  thy  God  from  the  land  of  Egypt,  will 
yet  make  thee  to  dwell  in  tabernacles,  as  in  the  days  of  the  solemn 
feast." — HosEA  xii.  9. 

The  Jewish  Feast  of  Tabernacles  must  have  been 
most  picturesque  and  striking.  Every  year,  as  the 
seventh  month  came  round,  the  city  of  Jerusalem 
bloomed  into  a  forest.  The  houses  were  deserted 
and  all  the  people  took  up  their  abodes  in  booths 
or  tents  built  temporarily  and  slightly  wherever  any 
room  for  them  could  be  found.  They  were  set  up 
upon  the  flat  tops  of  the  dwellings,  and  along  the 
crowded  streets,  and  in  the  broad  court-yard  of  the 
temple,  and  in  the  public  squares.  The  staid,  re- 
spectable inhabitants  of  the  houses  came  out  and 
lived  in  primitive  fashion  under  the  extemporaneous 
shelter  of  leaves,  alongside  of  the  homeless  wander- 
ers who  knew  what  such  outdoor  lodging  was  by  the 
whole  habit  of  their  lives.  The  palace  and  the  hovel 
alike  turned  their  inhabitants  into  the  streets.  Every 
morning  while  the  feast  lasted  it  must  have  seemed 
as  if  the  entire  population  were  ready  to  forsake  the 

365 


366  THE   FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES 

beds  where  they  had  spent  the  night  and  move  on 
like  an  army  on  the  march,  or  a  host  of  pilgrims 
ready  for  the  next  stage  of  their  journey,  and  leave 
the  old  city  of  David  empty  on  its  hills. 

And  what  was  the  meaning  of  the  feast  of 
tents? 

"That  your  generations  may  know  that  I  made 
the  children  of  Israel  to  dwell  in  booths  when  I 
brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt.  I  am  the 
Lord  your  God,"  This  is  the  explanation  of  its  pur- 
pose which  Jehovah  gives  in  Leviticus.  It  was  a 
perpetual  memorial  of  the  life  in  the  wilderness. 
God  wanted  to  be  to  them  always  "the  Lord  their 
God  which  brought  them  up  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt,  out  of  the  house  of  bondage."  He  never 
wanted  them  to  forget  those  forty  years.  And  so 
the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  restored  it  every  year. 

And  the  value  of  such  reminiscence  lay  in  three 
things.  First,  it  reminded  the  people  of  God's 
mercy  which  had  led  them  through  all  their  dangers. 
Then,  it  made  them  feel  the  comfort  and  security 
of  the  settled  life  into  which  they  had  arrived.  And 
yet  again,  it  suggested  to  them  the  deeper  sense  in 
which  they  will  still  and  must  always  be  wanderers; 
the  way  in  which,  though  the  wanderings  of  their 
feet  in  the  wilderness  were  over,  the  higher  part  of 
them,  their  spiritual  part,  must  always  be  a  wan- 
derer in  a  world  which  has  no  final  satisfaction  for 
the  human  soul.  Every  year  the  great  acted  parable 
proclaimed  this  truth.  As  the  multitude  left  their 
solid  houses  to  live  in  travellers'  tents,  could  be 
heard  the  heart  of  the  people  saying  to  itself:  "We 


THE   FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES  367 

have  here  no  continuing  city,  but  we  seek  one.    We 
are  strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the  earth." 

In  this  last  meaning  of  it,  is  not  to-day  a  Feast  of 
Tabernacles?  On  the  first  day  of  a  new  year,  with 
the  sense  of  transition  strong  within  us  and  the  at- 
mosphere of  change  everywhere  about  us,  is  it  not 
exactly  as  if  our  souls  went  out  of  their  solid  houses 
and  lived  in  booths?  We  leave  for  the  moment 
some,  at  least,  of  our  well-built  certainties  and  dwell 
for  awhile  amid  the  realized  doubtfulness  of  life. 
Our  well-built  certainties  are  not  pulled  down.  They 
stand  there  still  like  the  Jews'  houses  in  Jerusalem. 
We  shall  go  back  to  them  after  our  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles is  over.  But  for  the  time  the  narrow  walls 
are  forsaken  and  we  live  in  larger  air.  The  possibili- 
ties of  life  seem  greater.  The  skies  and  stars  and 
waving  branches  of  the  booths  are  over  our  heads. 

And  here  comes  in  the  verse  out  of  the  prophet 
Rosea,  which  I  have  made  my  text.  "I  will  yet 
make  thee  to  dwell  in  tabernacles,"  says  God  to 
His  people,  "as  in  the  days  of  the  solemn  feast." 
May  not  the  words  mean  for  us  something  as  large 
as  this? — that  the  dispensation  of  tabernacles  is  per- 
petual;  that  always  in  the  midst  of  man's  most 
settled  life  there  shall  come  times  when  he  shall  be 
compelled  to  remember  his  unsettledness;  and  then, 
what  seems  to  be  suggested  in  the  last  words  of  the 
verse,  that  these  times  of  realized  unsettledness, 
shall  be  and  ought  to  be  feast-times, — in  other  words 
that,  truly  understood,  it  is  a  joy  and  privilege  and 
exaltation  to  the  soul  of  the  true  man  when  he  is 
made  to  realize  that  his  most  fixed  condition  is  not 


368  THE   FEAST  OF  TABERNACLES 

really  fixed,  but  sure  of  disturbance,  exposed  to  all 
the  winds  of  change.  This  is  a  great  truth — worthy 
of  being  set  forth  in  picturesque  and  elaborate  sym- 
bol. For  not  the  things  which  happen  to  us,  but 
the  meanings  which  the  things  which  happen  have 
for  us,  are  the  real  facts  of  our  existence.  Not  that 
we  dwell  in  tabernacles,  but  whether  our  dwelling 
in  tabernacles  is  a  fast  or  a  feast  is  the  really  impor- 
tant thing. 

To  many  men  it  is  a  fast.  They  crawl  out  of  their 
solid  houses  and  take  up  their  abode  in  their  tents 
of  uncertainty  because  they  cannot  help  themselves. 
They  dwell  there  with  groans  and  tears.  They 
chant  the  litanits  of  sorrow.  They  eat  black  bread 
and  bitter  herbs.  They  are  all  gladness  when  the 
Fast  of  Tabernacles  is  over,  and  they  can  go  singing 
back  to  their  dear  solidity  again,  to  forget  that 
things  are  not  to  be  forever  as  they  are  to-day.  To 
other  men  the  whole  experience  is  a  festival.  The 
anticipation  of  it  makes  the  long  year  bright  and 
saves  it  from  monotony.  To  be  reminded  that  the 
most  settled  routines  are  after  all  but  temporary 
habits,  that  the  most  permanent  abodes  are  only 
halting-places  on  a  journey,  that  change  and  not 
continuance  is  the  true  condition  of  the  deepest  life ; 
— all  this  is  full  of  exhilaration  and  delight.  The 
soul's  booth  under  the  waving  branches  is  glad  and 
bright  with  song;  and  by  and  by  when  the  soul  re- 
turns into  its  well-built  routine  again,  it  carries  with 
it  the  newly  felt  certainty  of  change,  to  burn  like  a 
candle  in  the  house  until  the  next  time  to  leave  the 
house  for  the  wide-open  sky  shall  come. 


THE   FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES  369 

What  makes  the  difference  in  these  two  sorts  of 
men?  "It  is  a  difference  of  temperament,"  we  say 
— covering  our  puzzling  question  with  a  large-sized 
word,  as  one  puts  the  cover  on  a  boiling  pot  in 
hopes  that  the  confusion  within  will  boil  itself  out 
of  itself  to  some  result.  "It  is  a  difference  of  tem- 
perament," we  say,  as  if  temperaments  were  abso- 
lute, eternal  things,  with  no  beginning  and  no  end, 
which  came  from  nowhere  and  which  issued  in  noth- 
ing. Temperaments  are  but  the  habits  of  the  soul, 
which  have  become  unconscious  of  their  causes,  as 
habits  do,  but  which  have  their  causes  nevertheless. 
What  really  makes  the  difference  in  the  two  sorts  of 
men  is  their  willingness  or  unwillingness  to  think  of 
the  infiniteness  of  life. 

Does  that  seem  a  great  name  to  give  to  the  reason 
why  men  like  or  dislike  to  face  the  changefulness  of 
the  world?  But  remember  that  the  deepest  differ- 
ences of  human  natures  must  of  necessity  declare 
themselves  in  superficial  varieties  of  act  and  feeling. 
The  heart  of  the  earth  is  convulsed  and  a  small 
crack  on  the  earth's  surface  tells  the  story  first.  And 
so  when  one  of  God's  Feasts  of  Tabernacles  comes, 
and  all  mankind  together  are  driven  out  into  the 
thought  of  instability  and  changefulness,  one  man 
goes  reluctantly  and  bitterly  because  the  summons 
disturbs  that  which  he  had  dared  to  think  of  as 
final,  and  another  man  right  by  his  side  goes  trium- 
phant and  joyous  because  the  whole  event  satisfies 
his  deepest  expectation  and  his  fundamental  thought 
of  life.  "I  knew  this  could  not  be  the  end,"  he 
says;  "I  knew  that  there  can  be  no  end  until  the 

94 


370  THE   FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES 

infinite  perfection  has  been  reached.  The  tent-life 
is  the  true  life  until  the  building  of  God,  the  house 
not  made  with  hands,  is  reached.  Therefore  wel- 
come this  signal  and  token  and  reminder  of  it,  break- 
ing in  upon  the  hardening  security  to  which  my  life 
was  settling."  Is  it  not  clear  how  to  the  first  man 
the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  is  a  fast  while  it  is  a  true 
feast  to  the  other? 

All  this  is  true  of  every  department  of  life.  It  is 
true  about  men's  thoughts.  A  man  learns  all  he  can 
learn,  and  is  satisfied.  His  creed  is  fixed  and  settled. 
He  and  the  men  about  him  think  alike.  There  is  no 
dream  of  growth  or  of  enlargement.  To  change  an 
item  of  this  faith  is  of  necessity  to  wander  into  error. 
Another  man  no  less  sincerely  holds  his  faith.  It  is 
his  light  and  law.  He  lives  by  it  and  works  by  it; 
but  all  the  time  he  knows  that  the  entire  truth  is 
more  than  any  creed  can  state,  is  vaster  and  more 
mysterious  than  any  human  soul  can  comprehend. 
He  not  merely  holds  this  as  a  conviction  ;  it  fills  him 
through  and  through  and  colors  all  his  thought.  He 
never  slips  out  of  the  certainty  that  what  he  holds, 
true  as  it  is,  is  only  a  small  part  and  fraction  of  the 
truth. 

Now  to  these  two  men,  standing  side  by  side, 
comes  one  of  God's  Feasts  of  Tabernacles.  Do  you 
not  see  now  what  that  means?  There  comes  one  of 
those  times  in  which  God  makes  the  whole  world 
feel  how  large  is  truth  and  how  far  all  men  are  from 
having  found  its  end.  These  two  men  have  to  go 
out  together  and  live  in  their  booths  side  by  side. 
The  law  of  the  Feast  is  universal.    Neither  can  stay 


THE    FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES  37I 

behind  in  his  house,  however  much  he  wishes.  But 
how  differently  they  go!  To  one  the  feast  is  no 
feast,  but  a  mournful  fast.  To  the  other  it  is  full  of 
solemn  joy. 

I  think  all  this  is  most  familiar  to  us  now.  This 
day  of  ours  is  one  of  God's  Feasts  of  Tabernacles. 
In  things  of  faith  and  creed  what  hosts  of  the  peo- 
ple of  God  are  living  in  tents,  seekers  not  finders, 
sure  that  they  have  not  yet  reached  the  "continuing 
city  "  of  final  and  established  truth.  To  some  men 
it  is  a  perpetual  misery.  To  other  men  it  is  a  per- 
petual delight.  For  them  to  think  that  they  had 
reached  the  fullest  truth  which  they  were  capable  of 
knowing — that  would  be  misery  to  them.  For  it 
would  mean,  "We  are  not  then  capable  or  worthy 
of  dealing  with  and  seeking  the  infinite.  Here  in 
this  little  limit  we  must  rest  ";  and  so  man's  noblest 
conception  of  himself  and  noblest  ambition  for  his 
future  perishes. 

There  comes  some  great  disturbance  on  a  land — a 
war  or  a  commercial  crisis.  There  are  the  two  sorts 
of  greeting  for  it  in  men's  souls.  One  kind  of  man 
goes  into  it  as  if  he  went  to  the  funeral  of  every- 
thing. Another  man  goes  to  it  as  to  a  feast — "a 
solemn  feast,"  as  Hosea  calls  it, — not  a  time  of  friv- 
olity or  lightness,  but  a  time  when  the  world  grows 
large  and  the  souls  of  men  shake  themselves  free  of 
the  fixed  littleness  of  life.  Such  days  as  these  are 
Feasts  of  Tabernacles.  You  walk  the  streets  and 
see  men's  faces  anxious  and  perplexed.  The  quiet 
complacency  is  gone.  These  men  evidently  do  not 
hold  to-morrow's  bread  in  their  safe  hands.     They 


372  THE   FEAST   OF  TABERNACLES 

do  not  know  where  to-morrow's  bread  will  come 
from.  They  listen  to  each  other's  prophecies  and 
turn  away  incredulous.  "  What  does  he  know  about 
it  more  than  I  do?  What  does  either  of  us  know? 
Is  it  not  all  uncertain?" 

Yet  have  you  not  sometimes,  in  the  midst  of  such 
uncertain  days,  seen  here  and  there  an  eye  that 
kindled  and  a  face  that  flushed?  Have  you  not 
sometimes  caught  glimpse  of  a  look  which  made  you 
think  of  the  words  of  Jesus:  "Then  look  up  and  lift 
up  your  head,  for  your  redemption  draweth  nigh?  " 
It  was  a  look  of  liberty.  It  seemed  as  if  to  some 
men  this  confusion  meant  the  breaking  of  cables  and 
the  scattering  of  clouds.  In  the  disappointment  of 
their  immediate  hopes,  the  deepest  instincts  and  ex- 
pectations of  their  souls  sailed  forth  into  satisfaction. 
"Behold,  then,"  they  say,  "business  is  not  every- 
thing; and  business  success  is  not  the  end  of  living. 
A  man  can  live  without  it.  There  are  higher  things, 
— we  have  dreamed  of  them  in  the  visions  of  the 
night.  Now  our  eyes  see  them  in  the  broad  light  of 
this  tumultuous  day." 

Men  used  to  think  that  the  constitution  of  Society 
was  fixed  forever.  Just  how  class  was  to  live  with 
class, — who  was  to  command  and  who  was  to  obey, 
who  was  to  sleep  in  luxury  and  who  was  to  do  the 
work,  all  this  was  settled  and  decided  in  the  nature 
of  things.  The  axioms  were  all  found  out  and 
folded  away.  They  never  could  be  changed. 
Within  these  solid  walls  we  were  to  live  forever. 
There,  too,  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  has  arrived. 
The  trumpet  has  blown  and  man  after  man  is  seen, 


THE    FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES  373 

under  a  compulsion  which  he  cannot  resist,  coming 
out  of  his  solid  house  of  absolute  conviction  and 
taking  up  his  abode  in  the  frail  booth  of  uncertainty. 
Some  men — perhaps  most  men — hate  it  and  would 
be  thankful  to  be  let  alone.  To  other  men  the 
change  is  full  of  a  mysterious  and  awful  joy.  The 
whole  of  this  mysterious  life  is  a  "solemn  feast." 

To  the  more  personal  and  private  Feasts  of  Tab- 
ernacles I  need  only  to  refer,  and  your  own  memories 
will  recognize  them.  Your  own  hearts  and  homes 
are  full  of  them.  You  said:  "My  household's  way 
is  fixed  for  many  years.  There  is  nothing  here  that 
will  not  last."  You  limited  your  thought  and  wish 
to  what  your  walls  contained.  And  then,  just  when 
you  were  surest,  the  solid  walls  turned  to  tremulous 
branches,  and  you  were  out  among  the  winds,  under 
the  stars,  and  nothing  was  fixed.  Anything  was 
possible.  It  may  have  been  a  joyous  or  a  melan- 
choly change.  It  may  have  been  a  glad  or  sad  event 
which  broke  the  spell  and  brought  the  difference. 
That  does  not  matter.  The  change  from  certainty 
to  uncertainty,  from  fixedness  to  instability,  is  the 
great  thing.  And  then,  oh,  how  the  real  question 
stood  in  the  midst  of  your  astonished  household, 
and  looked  you  in  the  face,  and  asked  each  one, 
"Have  you  then  any  hold  on  the  infiniteness  of 
life?  "  And  each  one  answered  by  the  way  in  which 
he  met  the  new  life  of  the  opened  household.  A 
solemn  joy  or  a  despondent  dread  was  in  the  face  of 
each. 

This,  then,  is  what  I  mean  when  I  say  that  the 
way  in  which  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  become/-  a  fast 


374  THE   FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES 

or  a  feast  to  any  man  depends  upon  whether  he  has 
learned  to  live  in  the  infinity  of  life.  There  is  a  na- 
ture to  which  the  thought  of  the  temporariness  and 
transitoriness  and  changefulness  of  things  is  abso- 
lutely necessary,  and  brings  the  highest  inspiration, 
— not  from  mere  restlessness  and  the  superficial 
weariness  with  circumstances  which  have  been  but 
half  exhausted  and  enjoyed,  but  from  the  need  of 
some  symbol  or  expression  of  that  sense  of  incom- 
pleteness and  aspiration  of  which  the  heart  is  full. 
The  outward  change  is  but  a  symbol  and  in  some  de- 
gree a  means.  If  it  goes  no  deeper  and  does  not  get 
at  the  soul  and  make  it  live  a  new  life,  and  think  new 
thoughts,  and  be  another  soul,  it  comes  to  very  little. 
Indeed,  there  are  very  many  of  the  noblest  natures 
who  are  realizing  the  instability  of  life  by  the  con- 
tinual fluctuation  of  thought  and  feeling  even  while 
every  outward  circumstance  remains  unchanged. 
There  is  great  beauty  in  this  unseen  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles which  very  often  is  being  held  in  a  man's  soul, 
when  it  seems  to  all  his  friends  who  live  about  him 
as  if  he  were  dwelling  in  a  house  of  the  most  solid 
unchangeableness.  At  the  very  time  when  his  life 
seems  to  be  most  absolutely  monotonous,  he  may 
be  going  outside  of  his  most  treasured  and  well-built 
convictions  and  recognizing  how  partial  they  are, 
how  they  cannot  be  the  final  home  of  a  soul's  faith. 
And  so  he  may  be  dwelling  for  the  moment  in  the 
open  booth,  into  which  come  freely  suggestions  of 
undiscovered  truth  and  revelations  of  the  distant 
future. 

Whether  the   changefulness  be  that  of   outward 


THE   FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES  375 

and  visible  conditions  or  the  subtler  one  of  inward 
thoughts,  there  are  men  to  whom  it  brings  inspira- 
tion which  they  could  not  lose  without  losing  their 
best  strength.  Every  disturbance  and  unsettlement 
opens  anew  the  infinite  prospect.  Every  jolt  and 
jar  assures  them  that  the  chariot  is  moving.  The 
fact  of  present  change  is  a  satisfaction  for  them,  be- 
cause it  justifies  their  hope  that  they  shall  not  always 
be  the  poor  thing  which  they  are  to-day,  but  shall 
attain  diviner  things. 

And  then,  what  follows  from  this?  Must  it  not 
be  that  any  power  which  opens  the  infinite  life  to 
any  man  must  be  the  interpreter  and  transfigurer  to 
him  of  all  the  petty  special  changefulness  of  life? 
And  so,  if  Christ  "brings  life  and  immortality  to 
h'ght,"  if  He  truly  compels  the  man  who  becomes 
His  disciple  to  look  far  on  and  see  vast  things 
before  him,  then  He  irradiates  changefulness  and 
makes  it  a  satisfaction  and  assurance  to  the  soul. 

I  feel  so  strongly  that  here,  and  here  alone,  we 
are  on  the  highest  and  the  strongest  ground!  We 
make  most  feeble  efforts  at  consolation.  Mostly  our 
efforts  at  consolation,  either  for  ourselves  or  one  an- 
other, are  merely,  in  one  form  or  another,  the  reiter- 
ation of  the  fact  of  the  inevitableness  of  change. 
"Why  is  it  that  nothing  will  stay  fixed  or  settled? " 
And  you  think  that  you  have  answered  the  queru- 
lous and  puzzling  question  when  you  say:  "Oh, 
they  never  have!  In  the  days  of  Julius  Caesar,  in 
the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  things  changed  just  as 
they  do  to-day.  They  always  have.  They  always 
will.     Go  back  and  take  it  as  it  always  was  and  is 


37^  THE   FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES 

and  will  be  to  the  end."  There  is  no  consolation 
there.  Suppose  not  you,  but  Christ,  tries  to  con- 
sole the  puzzled  soul;  suppose  He  begins  not  here 
in  the  detail  of  the  man's  present  existence,  but  far 
off,  far  on  in  the  great  purpose  of  the  man's  being, 
in  the  far  range  of  his  eternal  life.  "You  are  eter- 
nal," He  declares.  "You  belong  to  the  Eternal 
Father,  and  you  share  His  immortality.  You  are  a 
stranger  here,  a  stranger  and  a  traveller.  This  is  no 
place  for  you  to  live  in.  You  can  be  at  rest  only 
when  you  have  reached  the  Infinite  and  have  found 
your  home  in  God."  Let  Christ  teach  the  man  that. 
Let  Him  fill  the  man  with  that  consciousness.  Let 
Him  make  the  man  enthusiastically,  triumphantly 
aware  that  not  here  and  now,  but  far  away,  is  the 
completion  and  rest  of  his  soul;  and  then  let  Christ 
turn  back  with  him  suddenly  to  the  present  moment 
of  which  the  man  was  complaining,  and  say:  "With 
all  this  future  prospect  vast  before  you,  what  do  you 
want  here  and  now?  Do  you  want  everything  to 
speak  of  fixity  and  settlement,  as  if  there  never 
could  be  any  alteration?  or  do  you  want  the  sound 
and  sight  of  change  to  be  in  everything?"  Does 
not  the  man's  soul  answer  truly:  "Let  me  not  root 
myself  too  deeply  where  I  do  not  mean  nor  wish  to 
stay.  Let  me  have  ever  round  me  the  promises  and 
prophecies  of  the  great  freedom,  the  great  progress 
to  which  any  soul  belongs.  O,  for  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  in  which  I  shall  know  myself  but  a  pil- 
grim! O,  for  a  perpetual  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  in 
which  all  shall  seem  a  pilgrimage,  and  the  infinite 
prospect  shall  shine  ever  through  the  scattered  dust 


THE    FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES  377 

of  these  earthly  experiences,  broken  with  perpetual 
change!  " 

It  may  be  that  it  seems  to  be  asking  too  much  of 
man  that  he  should  thus  desire  and  demand  perpet- 
ual disturbance  and  continual  change.  Let  us  be 
thankful,  then,  that  God  does  not  wait  for  him  to  de- 
mand it,  but  sends  it  to  him  whether  he  will  or  no. 
He  treats  us  as  you  treat  your  children.  Not  what 
they  wish,  but  what  they  need,  you  give  them.  It 
would  be  cruel  to  wait  for  the  conscious  desire  be- 
fore you,  seeing  the  unconscious  need,  sent  the  sup- 
ply. God  does  not  wait  for  us  to  say:  "Now  it  is 
time  for  me  to  be  uprooted.  Now  let  my  health  be 
shaken.  Now  let  my  riches  disappear.  Now  let 
the  solid  landscape  fade  in  mist,  and  the  great  dis- 
pensation of  uncertainty  arise."  That  would  be 
cruelty  indeed.  As  well  might  the  surgeon  wait 
till  the  sufferer  himself  called  for  the  knife.  God, 
by  His  own  will,  knowing  Himself  that  the  time  has 
come,  beckons,  and  we  follow  Him,  often  reluctantly, 
often  in  tears.  And  it  is  only  as  we  follow  Him  that 
our  hearts  respond  to  His  heart,  and  we  see  the 
beauty  of  the  new  life  into  the  midst  of  which  He 
leads  us,  and  by  and  by  are  surprised  at  our  own 
voices  praising  Him  for  giving  us  that  from  which 
we  shrank,  that  which  we  never  should  have  had 
the  courage  or  the  strength  to  ask. 

Thus  we  have  sung  our  Psalm  of  Changefulness 
and  have  felt  through  it  all,  I  trust,  the  music  of 
God's  purpose.  It  is  not  accident.  It  is  not  because 
this  man's  roof  leaked  and  this  man's  wall  was 
crumbling  that  all  the  world  have  come  out  of  their 


378  THE   FEAST    OF   TABERNACLES 

houses  and  are  living  on  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  in 
tents.  It  is  the  utterance  of  a  fundamental  truth  of 
life.  It  is  the  recognition  of  an  unchanging  fact. 
That  fact  is  change;  whose  perpetual  and  necessary 
recurrence  is  the  most  changeless  thing  in  all  the 
history  of  man.  But  it  is  not  the  only  fact.  It  is 
not  the  deepest  fact.  And  now  it  is  quite  time  for 
us  to  remind  ourselves,  and  to  say,  before  we  close, 
that  unless  beneath  every  change  there  runs  a  deeper 
identity,  change  becomes  demoralizing  and  corrupt. 
See  how  it  was  in  this  historic  instance  which  has 
made  the  basis  of  our  study.  God  says,  by  the  lips  of 
Hosea:  "I  that  am  the  Lord  thy  God  from  the  land 
of  Egypt  will  yet  make  thee  to  dwell  in  taber- 
nacles." "The  Lord  thy  God  from  the  land  of 
Egypt!"  All  that  was  hundreds  of  years  ago. 
Change  after  change  had  come,  following  quick  upon 
each  other,  from  the  time  of  that  great  change  which 
brought  the  chosen  people  out  of  the  house  of  bond- 
age. The  Feast  of  Tabernacles  had  been  kept  every 
year.  And  yet  all  the  time  there  had  been,  behind 
and  under  all,  the  identity  of  God  and  their  identity 
and  the  unchangeable  fact  of  their  relationship  to 
Him.  Everything  else  had  changed  ;  but  these  three 
things  were  always  there:  "The  Lord,"  " f/ijy  God," 
and  "from  the  land  of  Egypt."  And  now,  five 
hundred  years  afterwards,  when  the  people  are  sum- 
moned once  more  out  of  their  dwellings,  the  great 
identities  are  reasserted  in  the  very  midst  of  the  re- 
newed demand  for  change.  "I  that  am  the  Lord 
thy  God  from  the  land  of  Egypt,  will  make  thee  to 
dwell  in  tabernacles." 


THE    FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES  3/9 

We  must  not  take  half  the  teaching  and  not  take 
the  whole.  God  summons  us  to  constant  change, 
but  it  is  God  that  summons  us,  the  God  who  is  un- 
changeable; and  we  who  pass  under  His  summons 
from  one  region  of  life  on  into  another  are  the  same 
beings  always,  and  between  us  and  Him  there  is  the 
unalterable  kinship  and  memory  of  manifested  love. 
Whatever  be  the  variations  of  the  ever-richening 
music,  that  theme  runs  through  it  all  and  keeps  it 
all  compact  and  real  and  simple. 

O  my  dear  friends,  do  you  not  know  the  picture 
of  all  this  in  your  earthly  life?  You  go  from  field  to 
field.  The  landscape  changes  constantly.  The 
ground  under  your  feet  is  now  barren  and  now  rich. 
The  sky  over  your  head  is  now  stoimy  and  now 
clear.  Onward  you  go,  and  every  year  is  a  new 
field  with  other  foliage  and  other  soil;  but,  as  you 
go,  the  same  Friend  always  holds  you  hand-in-hand. 
He  is  the  same.  You  are  the  same.  And  the  same 
love  and  duty  bind  you  to  each  other.  That  is  the 
identity  which  sounds  its  steady  cadence  under  every 
change  and  binds  the  years  together.  Personal 
identity  is  everything.  Could  you  live  in  the  same 
house — every  least  bit  of  furniture  the  same — with 
the  dear  faces  of  your  family  vanished,  and  make 
life  seem  the  same?  Could  you  live  with  your  un- 
broken family  about  you  in  the  depths  of  Africa  or 
Hindostan,  and  make  life  seem  very  different?  To 
live  a  life  of  changing  circumstance,  with  great  life- 
long friendships  running  through  it  from  end  to  end, 
that  is  the  lot  of  highest  privilege.  It  keeps  change 
and  identity  both,  but  identity  always  as  the  deeper 


380  THE    FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES 

fact, — change  woven  on  identity,  as  the  golden  pat- 
tern is  woven  on  the  golden  cloth. 

There  is  no  limit  to  this  truth.  It  stretches  out 
from  world  to  world  and  fills  eternity.  You  know 
nothing  about  the  world  beyond  the  grave  save  that 
your  father  or  your  child  is  there.  You  knov/ 
nothing  of  what  will  happen  to  you  as  you  enter 
on  that  world,  but  you  believe  that  your  father  and 
your  child  will  greet  you,  and  that  you  will  know 
each  other — you  and  they.  That  makes  the  unseen 
world  exactly  what  it  is  best  that  it  should  be  to 
you.  That  makes  it  mysterious,  yet  real, — real, 
yet  mysterious. 

Can  you  not  lift  all  that  and  feel  how  through  the 
confusion  of  change  runs  the  identity  of  God  and  of 
your  soul,  and  of  the  love  and  duty  which  have 
place  between  them?  Everything  is  changed  since 
twenty  years  ago.  Only  God  is  the  same,  and  you 
are  the  same,  and  as  you  were  loving  Him  and  obey- 
ing Him  then,  and  He  was  loving  and  protecting 
you,  so  now  you  love  Him  and  obey  Him,  and  He 
loves  you  and  protects  you  still.  Everything  will 
be  changed  ten  years  hence.  Only  wherever  you  are, 
whatever  you  are  doing  then,  God  will  be  the  same 
and  you  will  be  the  same;  and  you  will  be  loving 
and  obeying  Him,  and  He  will  be  loving  and  pro- 
tecting you. 

I  glory  in  the  vitality  and  the  solidity  together 
which  that  truth  gives  to  life.  I  see  the  practical 
law  of  life  which  will  result  from  such  a  truth. 
Be  sure  of  God  and  of  yourself,  and  of  the  love  be- 
tween your  soul  and  His,  and  then  shrink  from  no 


THE    FEAST   OF   TABERNACLES  381 

changefulness,  cling  to  no  present ;  be  ready  for  new 
skies,  new  tasks,  new  truths.  This  is  the  voice  that 
comes  to  us  out  of  the  ever-changing  world,  which 
has  the  unchanging  God  at  its  heart. 

May  that  voice  be  heard  in  our  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles now!  We  will  not,  we  cannot,  shut  our  eyes 
to  the  certainty  of  change  to-day,  but,  O  Christ,  into 
the  midst  of  our  change  bring  the  changelessness  of 
God !  Then  it  shall  be  indeed  a  feast  that  we  cele- 
brate, for  every  change  shall  only  make  the  change- 
less more  manifest  and  sure.  And  at  the  last  the 
world  shall  fade  away  from  us  only  to  let  Him,  in 
whom  the  preciousness  of  the  world  has  always 
lain,  shine  out  upon  us  in  His  perfect  glory  and 
unhindered  love! 

THE  END. 


A    Library    of  Information    in   One  Volume 


THE   TEMPLE 

BIBLE  DICTIONARY 

Edited  by 

The  Rev.  W.  EWING,  M.  A. 

The  Rev.  J.  E.  H.  THOMSON,  D.  D. 


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THE    TEMPLE   BIBLE    DICTIONARY 


THE   EDITORS  OF  THE  DICTIONARY. 

THE  REV.  W.  EWING,  M.  A.,  the  Editor-in-Chief,  is  a 
native  of  the  South  of  Scotland.  He  graduated  from  the 
University  of  Glasgow  with  distinction  in  Logic  and  Moral 
Philosophy.  After  taking  a  post-graduate  theological  course 
at  the  Free  Church  College,  Glasgow,  he  studied  at  Leipzic 
under  Delitzch,  and  after  ordination  went  to  Palestine  as  a 
missionary — his  work  there  being  centered  principally  around 
Tiberias,  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 

Here  his  proficiency  in  the  native  tongues  and  his  persistent 
activity  made  him  an  influence  throughout  the  surrounding 
country,  both  in  the  villages  of  the  peasantry  and  in  the 
encampments  of  the  wandering  Arabs. 

Returning  to  England  in  1893,  Mr.  Ewing  has  occupied 
important  pulpits  in  Birmingham,  Glasgow,  Stirling,  and 
Edinburgh. 

He  has  also  contributed  a  great  deal  to  current  literature  on 
oriental  subjects.  He  wrote  many  of  the  articles  dealing  with 
the  East  in  the  dictionaries  edited  by  Dr.  Hastings,  and  is  the 
author  of  the  well  known  book,  "Arab  and  Druze  at  Home." 

For  upwards  of  seven  years  he  has  contributed  articles  on 
oriental  subjects  to  the  American  Sunday  School  Times,  thus — 
so  to  speak — preparing  himself  for  the  very  responsible  posi- 
tion he  now  occupies  as  editor  of  the  TEMPLE  BIBLE  DIC- 
TIONARY. 

DR.  J.  E.  H.  THOMSON,  D.  D.,  the  Associate  Editor,  is 
also  a  Glasgow  University  graduate,  but  took  his  post-graduate 
work  at  Edinburgh,  where  he  was  medallist  in  Logic  and 
Moral  Philosophy. 

After  graduation  he  engaged  in  literary  work,  and  travelled 
on  the  Continent  of  Europe.  His  first  import-^nt  book,  "Books 
Which  Influenced  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles,  appeared  in  1891 
and  at  once  took  rank  as  a  standard  work  on  Apocalyptic  litera- 
ture and  gained  him  admission  to  the  staff  of  the  "Pulpit 
Commentary.  " 

In  1895,  Dr.  Thomson  went  to  Palestine  as  Free  Church 
Missionary  to  the  Jews,  and  was  stationed  at  Safed,  in 
Napthali,  the  loftiest  city  in  Palestine.  From  this  point  he 
made  frequent  journeys  throughout  Palestine  to  all  the 
points  famous  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 


THE    TEMPLE   BIBLE   DICTIONARY 


Briefly,  the  practical  experience  of  both  Editors  has  put 
them  in  a  position  to  know  what  is  needful  in  a  Bible  Diction- 
ary which  is  to  be  used  by  practical  workers  and  students — 
and  has  given  them  that  thorough,  first-hand  knowledge  of 
Bible  Lands  and  Peoples,  which  only  actual  contact  can 
bestow. 

THE  LIST  OF  CONTRIBUTORS  incudes  manyof  the  best 
orientalists  and  archaeologists,  the  names  of  such  men  as  Pro- 
fessor Margolioth,  M.  A.,  Lift.  D.,  etc.,  professor  of  Arabic  in 
the  University  of  Oxford,  Professor  A.  H.  Sayce,  LL.D.,D. 
C.  L.,  Lift.  D.,  professor  of  Assyriology  in  the  same  Univer- 
sity, the  Lord  Bishop  of  Ripon,  Professors  Mackintosh  of 
Edinburgh  University,  Wenley  of  the  University  of  Michigan, 
DaJman  of  Leipzic,  Anderson  Scott  of  Cambridge,  James 
Robertson  of  Glasgow,  being  guarantees  of  accuracy,  scholar- 
ship, culture  and  precision. 

THE  OBJECT  OF  THE  WORK: 

The  results  of  the  research  and  criticism  have  in  the  last 
few  years  been  cumulative  in  their  effect.  Egypt  and  the 
Euphrates  Valley,  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and  Palestine  itself, 
through  the  researches  of  Ramsay,  Petrie,  Conder  and  others, 
have  yielded  up  enough  of  their  secrets  for  us  to  be  able  to 
lift  with  practical  completeness  the  veil  which  has  for  centuries 
obscured  Bibical  lands  from  the  accurate  comprehension  of 
Western  people. 

At  the  same  time  the  vastly  conflicting  views  of  scholars 
with  regard  to  the  date,  authorship,  mode  of  composition,  trust- 
worthiness, etc.  of  the  various  books  of  the  Canon  of  Scripture 
have  settled  down  "^p  a  stable  mean  which  is  not  liable  to  vary 
very  much  for  man>  Vears  to  come — either  in  the  direction  of 
conservatism  or  in  that  of  radical  departure  from  accepted 
values. 

Consequently  it  has  seemed  to  the  editors  that  this  is  a 
favorable  period  at  which  to  put  forth  a  work  which  shall 
embody  late  results  in  both  Biblical  Archeology  and  Critical 
Inquiry  without  the  prospect  of  its  almost  immediately  becom- 
ing out  of  date  in  either  department. 

Excellent  work  has  been  done  in  some  larger  Dictionaries  of 
the  Bible  recently  published,  but  their  size  and  price  put  them 


THE    TEMPLE    BIBLE   DICTIONARY 


beyond  the  reach  of  many  who  are  keenly  alive  to  the  neces- 
sity for  competent  and  trustworthy  guidance  in  the  study  of 
the  Scriptures. 

The  Editors  therefore  believe  that  there  is  room  for  a  Dic- 
tionary such  as  this,  which,  leaving  aside  all  that  is  merely 
theoretical  and  speculative,  presents  simply,  shortly  and 
clearly  the  state  of  ascertained  knowledge  on  the  subjects 
dealt  with,  at  a  price  which  brings  the  latest  results  of 
scholarly  investigation  within  the  reach  of  every  earnest 
student  of  the  Bible,  and  which  for  the  working  clergyman, 
the  local  preacher,  the  class  leader,  the  Sunday  Schoolteacher, 
the  travelling  missionary,  offers  an  indispensable  vade-mecum 
of  scientific  and  critical  knowledge  about  Biblical  lands,  peo- 
ples and  literature. 

THE  BOOK  ITSELF: 

The  volume  is  a  singularly  handsome  one  of  eleven  hundred 
pages,  9  inches  by  6/^  in  size,  bound  in  dark  maroon  cloth, 
whh  gilt  back  and  tinted  top  and  edges.  There  are  over  500 
explanatory  illustrations  —  many  from  entirely  new  photo- 
graphs— and  eight  colored  maps. 

A  sensible  series  of  ingenious  contractions,  not  only  of 
proper  names,  but  of  ordinary  words  also,  has  made  it  possible 
to  pack  information  very  much  closer  in  these  pages  than  is 
usual  elsewhere. 

The  Dictionary  to  the  Apocrypha  is  in  a  section  by  itself, 
with  a  special  introductory  article.  There  are  also  special 
articles  on:  The  Influence  of  the  Bible  on  English  Literature; 
The  New  Testament  Apocrypha;  Apocalyptic  Literature^  The 
Targums;  Versions  of  the  Scripture;  Philo  Jud^us;  Josephus; 
and  The  Language  of  Palestine  in  the  time  of  Christ;  while 
in  the  Text  of  the  Dictionary  everything  possible  has  been 
done  by  the  use  of  thin  opaque  paper,  appropriate  sizes  of 
type,  and  a  serviceable  system  of  cross-references  to  make  the 
book  more  legible,  more  intelligible,  and  more  generally  com- 
fortable to  read  than  any  other  book  of  its  kind  in  existence. 

It  is  the  devout  hope  of  the  Editors  that  at  last  a  Bible 
Dictionary  has  been  produced  which  will  be  the  standard  of 
its  kind  for  many  years  to  come,  both  as  to  fullness  and  erudi- 
ilon  of  contents  and  to  mechanical  excellence  of  bookmakins. 


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